


Equilibrium

by Goddessprotectus



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Butcher-typical language and bad behaviour, Canon-Typical Nicknames and Name Calling, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26802985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goddessprotectus/pseuds/Goddessprotectus
Summary: Lamplighter, for all his flaws (and yeah, there are certainly plenty of those) wants to get this shit sorted out. So he makes a few calls, and a plan starts to come together. Though really, he wishes it didn't involve quite so much of his personal life.Canon divergence following episode 6 of season 2.
Relationships: The Lamplighter/The Deep | Kevin
Comments: 39
Kudos: 133





	1. Chapter 1

By the time they all reconvene at Mallory’s forested estate, some kind of silent, precarious peace seems to have been achieved. Butcher fractures it briefly with a tantrum about Lamplighter’s continuing survival, grabs the supe by the shirt, pushes him against the wall. When Lamplighter doesn’t respond, just glares up at him, daring him, Butcher releases him and stomps off to sulk.

Talking round in circles about what to do lasts for hours, stuck in the sitting room, Lamplighter cross-legged in an armchair in his borrowed jeans, Mallory opposite him in an upright dining chair, everyone else in relative levels of sprawled across the furniture. The crux of it is that Mallory wants to do things the legal way, have a big hearing, everything out in the open. Lamplighter’s already shot it down about twelve different ways, staring down at his socks, voice low and level. Truly most of the Boys agree with him, but they’re unwilling to voice opposition to Mallory too strongly.

‘If we assassinate Homelander and Stormfront in cold blood, if such a thing were even possible, we would be making them martyrs.’ Mallory says again, it feels like the hundredth time.

‘If we take this public, we all die.’ Lampligher says, picking at a stray thread on his jean hem. ‘And that’s fine with me, but it seems like a bit of an anti-climax for you guys, what with all the effort you’ve put in up to now.’

‘That’s true.’ Butcher says.

Mallory purses her lips at him. ‘But we still need to bring proof of their wrongdoings to light, otherwise Vought and the Seven will just start again.’

‘That’s also true.’ Hughie supplies.

And on it goes, until Lamplighter finally runs a hand through his hair, tips his head back and exhales loudly. ‘Ok, can I please have my phone. I think I know someone who can help.’

There’s a brief argument. Butcher says ‘no, the cunt cannot have his phone’, but Frenchie’s halfway to giving it to him before Butcher's finished, waiting for Mallory to agree, and she does.

‘On speakerphone,’ she demands.

Lamplighter agrees, shuffles forwards and more upright and picks a contact. The dial tone goes for several long rings before it’s answered.

‘Hello?’ A male voice says.

‘Hey,’ Lamplighter says, ‘it’s me.’ There’s a scrabble and a thud on the other end of the line. Lamplighter’s face twists in confusion. ‘Hello?’

‘I dropped the phone.’ The voice on the other end of the line announces breathlessly. Annie screws up her face, elbowing Hughie. Hughie frowns at her. The mystery voice keeps talking. ‘Liam? Is it that really you? Why are you calling? I mean not that I don’t appreciate you calling, but it’s just really unexpected.’

‘That’s The Deep.’ Annie interrupts. The rest of the room reacts accordingly. Butcher and MM almost draw their guns. Mallory holds up a hand to quiet them.

‘Am I on speaker?’ The Deep asks. ‘I just heard something.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Lamplighter reassures him. ‘Look, Kevin, I need to talk to you about something, but I can’t do it over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere? If I give you an address?’

‘Oh,’ The Deep sounds surprised, ‘well I mean, yeah, sure, I guess. No one really seems to care what I do out here anyway, soooooo, sure.’ The last is petulant.

Lamplighter almost smiles a little, then. He rattles off the address of a diner in a town an hour away. Mallory looks at him askance at his familiarity with the area, he raises a shoulder enigmatically. ‘Can you rent a car and drive out here?’ He asks The Deep.

‘Yeah,’

‘Don’t wear your suit, ok?’ Lamplighter cautions the other supe. ‘Do you have some other gloves to wear?’

‘Yeah, I think I can find some.’

‘You wrote the address down, yeah? You can call me if you get lost, just don’t –’

‘I can drive two states over without help, Liam.’ The Deep snaps. ‘Anything else?’

The corners of Lamplighter’s lips twitch upwards again. ‘Did you really get _married_?’

‘Oh,’ The Deep hesitates, ‘I mean I don’t know if it’s like a _legal_ marriage. They just said I should pick someone. But then I didn’t really pick her, actually.’ He trails off.

Lamplighter rolls his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Well did you sign a piece of paper?’

‘Oh yeah,’ The Deep says emphatically, ‘I signed like loads of papers, but I don’t know what they were.’

‘KJ, what have we said? You don’t sign anything legal hasn’t read, right?’ Lamplighter sounds more animated at that than any time since the Boys had met him.

‘There is no legal out here,’ The Deep gets a little whine in his voice, ‘I’m all by myself. I’m doing my best, ok?’

‘Was anything you signed to do with money? Have you –’ Mallory motions and he cuts himself off. ‘Alright, we can talk about it later. The address I gave you is a Denny’s, so just wait in the parking lot.’

‘And you’ll be there?’ The Deep asks quietly.

Lamplighter looks up at Mallory, makes eye contact as he says, ‘Yeah, I’ll be there.’

They say goodbye, The Deep sounds reluctant, and Lamplighter hangs up, handing his phone back to Frenchie. Mallory fixes him with a hard stare.

‘Why did you call The Deep?’ She asks him.

Lamplighter shrugs again. ‘He knows everything there is to know about what goes on at Vought Tower, or at least he did until a few months ago. He can get gossip out of anyone.’

Mallory nods. ‘Right, but why did you call him?’

Lamplighter leans away from her, back into his chair.

Butcher stands up with a nasty smile. ‘I think I know.’

He picks up Mallory’s tablet and flicks across the screen for several moments. Eventually, triumphantly, he turns the screen around for the rest to see. The image is certainly of Lamplighter. He’s engaged in sexual activity with another person, face intense and eyes blazing, thrusting forwards into someone. The other figure is almost entirely obscured, on his stomach on the bed with his face pushed into the comforter by Lamplighter’s firm hand. Nothing particularly shocking, two adults fucking, salacious perhaps. But the other person is definitely a ‘he’.

Butcher trails a finger over the prone man’s abdomen on the screen. ‘Do I see,’ he asks in mock surprise, ‘a gill?’

Everyone leans forwards, except Lamplighter. He glowers. ‘Do you just keep those photos lying around?’

Mallory takes the tablet, pinches and drags to zoom in on the area Butcher indicated. Her lips quirk. ‘How interesting. It seems that five years ago we failed to realise we had caught not one but two of the Seven in our net.’

‘ _That_ was the secret you were so desperate to keep?’ Hughie blurts. Lamplighter grimaces, returns his gaze to his lap, keeps unravelling his jean hem. ‘Would it really have been so bad?’ Hughie asks earnestly. ‘I mean yeah, five years ago, coming out probably would have sucked, but would it have been as… as what you did?’ He trails off uncertainly, already regretting bringing up the subject they’d all been avoiding.

‘It wasn’t –’ Lamplighter hesitates, each word like pulling teeth. It’s already apparent to everyone that he hates explaining himself, explaining this particularly. ‘It wasn’t about keeping a secret, necessarily.’ He stops again. Butcher grunts, irritated, a little menacing. ‘It was Homelander, alright?’ Lamplighter snaps like he’s been pressed.

‘What?’ Butcher taunts, smirking around the room, like everyone’s in on his personal enjoyment of the situation. ‘Homelander doesn’t like queers? That it?’

‘Fuck you.’ Lamplighter snarls.

Butcher guffaws. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?’

Lamplighter’s fingers twitch like he’d very much like his lighter. ‘Butcher!’ Mallory warns. ‘Enough!’

‘Does any of this matter?’ Lamplighter directs hotly at Mallory. ‘Does it matter who I was fucking five years ago.’

Mallory stares back at him, cold as steel. ‘If I say it matters, it matters.’ She replies. ‘Now please, explain what you said about Homelander.’

Lamplighter’s face goes through a series of emotions before settling on blankly bad-tempered. ‘Fine. He found out about us. Me and Kevin, that is. He’s always hated KJ, it’s a thing he has. He doesn’t like the gills, thinks all supes should embody the perfect human being or some shit. I don’t know. I don’t know how he found out, it wasn’t like we were obvious about it, but he was furious. He trashed my room, lasered a hole in the wall. And he told me that if we didn’t stop right away, and if anyone ever found out what we’d done, he’d rip Kevin into pieces so small fishing boats would be using him for chum.’

The room is silent for a moment. They’re all familiar with the casual terror Homelander inspires.

‘And you believed this threat?’ Mallory clarifies. Her eyes bore into Lamplighter as though she could detect the truth of his words by sight.

Lamplighter laughs hollowly. ‘Well yeah. He had his hands right up in Kevin’s gills at the time, so, pretty convincing.’ He makes a hand gesture to go with his statement, palms facing in and fingers thrusting skywards. It’s a bizarrely unsettling image on all fronts, and the rest of the room shift uncomfortably.

Mallory begins taking notes on her tablet. ‘He threatened The Deep, did he threaten you?’

Lamplighter snorts. ‘He’s not stupid, he knows what works.’

Butcher looks at him speculatively. ‘Could you hurt him?’ He mimics the hand gesture that Lamplighter uses to direct flame. ‘With your fire?’

‘Maybe,’ Lamplighter’s noncommittal, ‘I don’t know. Nor does Homelander. My fire gets pretty hot. Could definitely mess up his all-American good looks. He wouldn’t want to take the risk. Kevin’s an easy target.’ He slants a nasty look at Annie. ‘Always more a lover than a fighter.’

‘Fuck you, asshole.’ Annie hisses, moving to get up.

Hughie puts a hand on her arm. ‘Let’s just, let’s just get the story out, alright? And then we can, whatever you want, all have a big fight.’ She shakes him off, but subsides. Lamplighter gives his little smirk of triumph.

‘So, you believed him. Did you stop?’ Mallory asks.

Lamplighter looks down again, resentment once more directed inwards. ‘If we’d stopped, you wouldn’t have those pictures.’ He swallows. ‘After, well,’ everyone knows after what, ‘ _after_ , we stopped. I stopped. I told him we couldn’t, anymore.’

‘Did you tell him what you’d done?’

He shakes his head. ‘Just that I’d done something bad. The worst. That it was over. Then I avoided him.’

There’s silence, the whole story told, out in the open.

‘So he was the reason.’ Mallory says thoughtfully.

Lamplighter looks at her sharply. ‘Those photos were the reason. As soon as I saw them, I knew. It didn’t matter if you were blackmailing me to come light your barbeque, the fact you had them meant Kevin was dead. When I… when…’ he still doesn’t say it, ‘I was terrified for months that you’d use them. That I’d wake up one day and they’d be on my newsfeed. It wouldn’t matter if no one else recognised Kevin. Homelander would know. He’d know we didn’t do what he said and he’d follow through.’ A moment more silence. Lamplighter’s such a discomforting combination of bursts of fierce intensity and lapses into sullen indolence, blazing eyes and short, economic movements, that no one wants to speak.

‘Do you really think that _Kevin_ ,’ Mallory inflects the name the way everyone does, except Lamplighter, ‘will be able to help us with our little conundrum?’

Lamplighter sits back, fire gone. ‘I suppose in eight hours we’ll find out.’


	2. Chapter 2

It’s decided that Frenchie, Kimiko, MM and Starlight will join him meeting Kevin at the Denny’s parking lot in a shithole town forty miles from Mallory’s house. Liam wishes he’d been able to go alone. Realistically, he wishes he’d been able to just bring Frenchie and Kimiko. It’s not like Kevin would be any match for the female supe if he tried anything. Not that he was going to try anything, if it was like that he wouldn’t have come. But the CIA had been suspicious enough that Mallory had ordered a group excursion. Only Butcher and the boy, Hughie, were left behind. Hughie because he was still actively bleeding out of his stomach and Butcher because he seemed to be sulking again about the way things were going. Liam got the impression that Butcher wouldn’t enjoy any plan that involved working with supes. He seemed to barely tolerate Kimiko and Starlight, and their loyalties were now beyond question. The idea of working with the likes of Lamplighter and The Deep, barely reformed Vought stooges, clearly put his nose severely out of joint.

The journey is a bit tense and nobody talks while they get into position in the parking lot. They’re all secreted in various hiding places, except Liam, who gets to stand beside the van in the pouring rain. That’s spitefulness, he concludes, but he can’t say he blames them. It’s late on a Tuesday and the lot is quiet. No confusing false starts, few witnesses. It’s twenty minutes before an anonymous dark sedan pulls in and parks in Kevin’s slightly haphazard style.

Kevin extracts himself from the driver’s seat with his characteristic grace. He’s remembered to put on civilian clothes, which is good. Loose tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, no jacket, but it’s better than nothing. He’s even replaced his gloves with woollen fingerless ones. Not a fashion statement, Liam knows, just the easiest to modify. He stretches, working out the kinks of five hours of driving, and fuck, Liam hasn’t seen him in a year, hasn’t touched him in five, but the sight still gets him a little hard in his jeans. Kevin pulls a duffle out of the back seat and smiles, uncertainly, at Liam. Then Frenchie and MM step out from behind cars pointing guns at him, and Kimiko appears behind him baring her teeth, and he stops smiling.

‘Liam?’ He says questioningly. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Liam replies, ‘get in the van.’

Kevin looks blankly around at the people surrounding him. MM steps over to him and touches the gun to his temple. ‘Get in the van, asshole.’ Frenchie divests him of his bag.

Liam can’t help but feel a little guilty at the plaintive look Kevin casts his way, but he just opens the van door and motions Kevin inside. Kevin gets in, and the almost gets back out when he sees Starlight glaring back at him from inside.

‘You cut your hair.’ Liam says, to distract him.

Kevin glances back at Liam, rubbing a hand self-consciously over his cropped hair. ‘You don’t like it?’ He asks, like that might the biggest problem he has right now. ‘It’ll grow back.’

Liam forces a smirk, ushering the other man into a seat along the van’s wall. ‘Just thinking, less to hold onto.’

Kevin’s face freezes in shock. It’s not like Liam to be indiscreet, and of course he doesn’t know what Liam’s told them. He looks anxiously at the other people in the van.

‘For your wife, I mean.’ Liam clarifies.

‘Oh!’ Kevin nods expansively and unconvincingly. ‘Oh yeah, right, of course.’ His eyes do another circuit of the van, blatantly checking to see if the others have bought it. ‘Actually,’ he volunteers into the silence, ‘the Church of the Collective preaches abstinence after marriage as well as before.’

There’s a snort from Frenchie. MM feigns sympathy. ‘Oh yeah? That’s a tough break, man.’

Kevin nods along, the insincerity lost on him. ‘Yeah. I mean, that’s what Cassie told me, anyway.’

This time neither Frenchie nor MM can contain their chuckles. Kevin smiles uncertainly. Liam knows he’s never sure if people are laughing with him or at him.

‘Can we get this show on the road?’ Starlight interrupts. ‘I don’t wanna have to look at this asshole’s face for longer than I have to.’

‘Right,’ Frenchie says. 

MM hops out to take his seat at the wheel. Frenchie takes a toolbox out from under the bench. Kevin watches him warily. He produces a small circular saw and flicks it on, approaching Kevin with intent.

Kevin leans away from the whirring blade, eyes wide in terror. ‘What that fuck! Liam! What the fuck?’

‘They have to take your chip out.’ Liam explains calmly.

Kevin looks around in horror. ‘What? No! I don’t want you to cut me open.’

‘Don’t be such a baby, Deep.’ Starlight snaps. ‘It’s just a little cut.’

‘Do you want me to do it?’ Liam finds himself asking. Frenchie and Starlight look at him in surprise. He shrugs. ‘I’m a healthcare professional.’

‘Yes, please.’ Kevin says quickly.

Liam moves quickly, before Kevin can overthink it. He takes the saw from Frenchie and uses his other hand to push Kevin’s face to the side, holding him down and making sure he doesn’t look. He doesn’t want vomit all over the van. It’s short work to get the blade through Kevin’s skin. Liam doesn’t actually know what he’s doing, but he had his own chip taken out a handful of days ago, so he cuts in the same place and holds his hand out for the tweezers. Frenchie hands them to him and it’s only a matter of digging around for a few seconds to pull the tracking chip out. Kevin makes little complaining sounds the whole time, but it’s a token protest rather than a real hurt.

Frenchie takes the chip and throws it out of the van. ‘Let’s go.’ He leans into the front to tell MM.

‘But, my car.’ Kevin protests as Liam dabs the cut with some antiseptic.

‘What about it?’ Frenchie asks.

‘It’s a rental.’ Kevin says weakly.

‘Ah, yes,’ Frenchie holds out his hand. ‘Keys.’ He orders.

Kevin hands them over and Frenchie opens the back door again, throws them out. The door slams and they start to move.

‘Oh.’ Kevin says. ‘Oooookay.’

They stop ten minutes out of town, at the side of the road, as discussed. Kevin gets bundled out, spluttering a little, and Liam has to watch MM search him, hands all over him, pushing up his shirt to get a good look, checking his pockets and shoes, while Frenchie rifles through Kevin’s bag. His suit’s in there, predictably. Frenchie holds the vest up quizzically.

‘Well I didn’t know what you wanted me for.’ He says to Liam, defensive. ‘I wore normal clothes like you said, but I can’t swim in these.’ That’s true, Liam knows, not with the waistband across his gills.

‘It’s ok.’ Liam says.

‘Take your gloves off,’ MM orders brusquely.

Kevin flinches worse than he had when MM had exposed his gills. He gives Liam an anxious look.

‘C’mon man,’ MM presses, ‘you could be literally holding a tracker in there, then we’re gonna look pretty stupid. They gotta come off.’

Liam nods in response to Kevin’s plaintive look, and Kevin begins to hesitantly peel off his gloves.

‘ _Sacré bleu_ ,’ Frenchie whispers.

Liam knows that it is objectively shocking to see the translucent skin that webs between the lower portions of Kevin’s long fingers, but it had never bothered him particularly. He’s mostly concerned that Kevin will react badly if one of the others says something. He does have a tendency to lash out, and this could still go sideways real fast.

‘Well that is… interesting.’ MM says as he takes the gloves from Kevin and examines them. He eyes Kevin’s outstretched hands in discomfort. ‘Yeah, you can have these back.’

Kevin snatches them back.

‘We done?’ Liam asks.

‘ _Oui_.’ Frenchie says.

‘What the fuck is this?’ Kevin hisses at Liam as he’s bundled back into the van, eyes burning with humiliation.

‘Let’s just get there, and we’ll talk about it.’

‘I’ve gotta tell you, I’m not a hundred percent on board with getting anywhere right now.’ Kevin’s glaring across the van at him and honestly, Liam can’t help feeling nostalgic for a time when that would have meant great make up sex.

Liam shrugs. ‘Well I don’t think they’re gonna let you out now.’

Kevin folds his arms. ‘This is fucking bullshit.’

Liam knows the signs of a tantrum. He sighs. ‘KJ –’

‘Don’t call me that.’ He snaps. ‘Look, fuck this –’

‘Why don’t you have a nap?’ Liam cuts him off.

‘Yeah, I’m not gonna be able to sleep right now, _thanks_ , Liam.’

He’s out like a light within five minutes. Liam rests his elbows on his knees, looks at Kevin’s dark jawline where his head’s tipped back, imagines licking and biting along it. Kevin hadn’t had a beard the last time they’d fucked, but Liam could get on board with it. Could get on board with anything, really, as long as it’s KJ. He can feel the other’s looking at him, is aware he probably looks as thirsty for it as he feels, but there’s really no point being embarrassed about it now.

They sit in tense silence. After a while, Kimiko starts to make some emphatic hand movements. ‘I think she wants to know if his feet are webbed too.’ Frenchie translates.

Liam looks at her hard, but she doesn’t seem to be mocking Kevin. ‘Yes.’ He says shortly, and that puts an end to conversation for the rest of the journey.

When they get to Mallory’s, Liam’s illogically reluctant to wake Kevin up, considers carrying him in, like he might have six or seven years ago if they manufactured a reason to go somewhere just the two of them. But it’s not like that anymore, and this isn’t the time. Instead, he taps Kevin’s shoe with his foot.

Kevin wakes with a shudder. ‘Shit, sorry.’ He says reflexively, rubbing a hand over his face.

‘C’mon.’ Liam grabbed his bag. ‘We’re here.’

When he swings the door open Mallory’s waiting. As Kevin steps in after him, she points a gun at him.

His eyes go wide in fear. He puts his hands up. ‘Whoa, what’s the problem now?’

‘Did you know?’ She asks him coldly.

Liam frowns. ‘I told you he didn’t.’

‘I don’t know anything!’ Kevin exclaims. ‘I have literally no idea what’s going on right now.’ He looks sideways at Liam. ‘Liam, who are these people?’

‘They’re the CIA.’ Liam tells him.

Kevin perks up at that, lowering his hands. ‘Oh really? That’s actually super cool. Are you like a secret agent now?’

‘Not exactly.’ Liam mutters.

Kevin shrugs, looking back at Mallory, who’s lowered her gun and is eyeing Kevin doubtfully. ‘This isn’t exactly a great way to welcome someone who’s here to help you, you know.’ He tells her.

Butcher chuckles darkly from the end of the hall. ‘What were you expecting? A red carpet? Trumpets?’

Kevin looks at him. His mouth drops open. ‘You!’ He points at Butcher. ‘You killed Lucy!’ He looks around at MM and Frenchie accusingly. ‘I thought I recognised you guys.’

‘Who’s Lucy?’ Mallory asks, frowning. ‘You didn’t tell me anything about this, Butcher.’

‘She was my friend.’ Kevin folds his arms, looks at Liam. ‘I want to leave.’

‘Was Lucy a dolphin?’ Liam asks him gently.

‘Look, fish boy,’ Butcher growls, ‘I don’t give a fuck about your stupid whale. You’re here to answer some questions, and that’s what you’re gonna do.’

Kevin’s enraged. ‘She wasn’t stupid! She was a highly intelligent creature, and you murdered her!’

Mallory’s giving Kevin a dubious look. ‘Why don’t we go and sit down?’ She suggests in a tone that brooks no refusal.

Kevin looks mutinous. Liam touches his arm gently. ‘Let’s we get this done, then you can tell me all about Lucy.’ He suggests.

He’s still got his self-righteously angry face on, but Kevin goes. Liam exhales. This is good. They’re getting somewhere. He really hopes Kevin has some information they can use to compromise Homelander, preferably Stormfront too, but even if not, at least he’s here, in a CIA safehouse. Starlight stomps past him. That’ll have to be dealt with, probably, although not now. Preferably not at all, but life’s rarely that easy. Maybe she’ll get killed in the inevitable confrontation with Homelander and Stormfront. Liam probably shouldn’t hope for it, she seems like a nice girl, but it would be convenient as far as he’s concerned. Frenchie and Kimiko head into the sitting room too.

MM squares his shoulders, shares a look with Liam. ‘So that’s The Deep. He seems…’ he frowns, looking for the right words, ‘high maintenance.’

Liam snorts in spite of himself. ‘Yeah.’ He follows the others into the sitting room.


	3. Chapter 3

Liam takes up his now habitual armchair, but doesn’t feel the need to try to disappear into it this time. He feels a little less like dying than he had earlier in the day, and he can’t quite convince himself it’s not because Kevin’s here. Kevin’s sat stiffly on the sofa, hands rubbing his knees. Mallory takes a seat in her hard, upright chair again.

‘Alright, Deep,’ she says briskly. ‘You don’t know why you were invited here, is that correct?’

‘I don’t actually think I was _invited here_.’ Kevin replies sourly. ‘I thought I was coming here ‘cause Liam needed to talk to me, I don’t know what all this is.’

‘Lamplighter does need to talk to you.’ Mallory says, rather soothingly for her. Liam already has a bad feeling. ‘We’d all like your help with something actually. But first I’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright?’

Kevin narrows his eyes. ‘Is this like a test or something? ‘Cause I am not good at tests.’

She smiles at him, stiffly. ‘It’s not a test. Just a few questions based on your file. I'm sure it’s not a surprise for you to hear that we keep a file on all high-profile supes.’

‘Yeah, yeah of course.’ Kevin nods seriously, puffing up at being called “high-profile”.

Mallory picks up her tablet, taps and swipes to bring up Kevin’s file. Butcher leans in to look over her shoulder.

‘Kevin Junior.’ He observes, smirking. ‘Your dad liked being called Kevin so much, the fucker called you that too, did he?’

Kevin glares at him. ‘It was my mom’s choice, actually.’

Butcher frowns like he either doesn’t know what to say or doesn’t know where to start.

Mallory waves Butcher away. ‘Why don’t we start at the beginning? Can you tell me about the circumstances under which you joined the Seven?’

Kevin shifts, swallows, squares his shoulders. ‘Ughhhh, well. I, I already knew Liam. We go way back. Our parents took us to the same supe group when we were kids. It was one of those ones which are for kids with –’ he shrugs, making a face, ‘difficult powers or whatever. Liam was a real star. Anyway, he was in the Seven, and when a vacancy came up – that guy…’ he snaps his fingers, trying to remember the name.

‘Heavy Metal.’ Liam supplies.

‘Right! Heavy Metal drowned, so there was a space. And Liam called me. Invited me in for an audition.’ He smiles. ‘Vought loved me.’

‘So, you and Lamplighter were already…’ She trails off suggestively.

‘Already…’ Kevin’s not following her.

‘No,’ Liam says, nipping that one in the bud, ‘we hadn’t seen each other in years. But Vought were looking for something new, they were planning to go with the slogan “More than one kind of hero”, and I thought of Kevin.’

‘And why was that?’ Mallory’s still looking at Kevin, even if the question’s directed at Liam.

Liam’s more irritated, doesn’t like what he thinks Mallory’s implying. About him or KJ. ‘He was already active on the conservation scene. It seemed like a good fit, and a good direction for the Seven to go in.’

‘But it didn’t work out that way.’ She presses. ‘Why not?’

‘Because Homelander hated the idea.’ Liam says flatly. ‘He’s,’ he considers how to say it, ‘he thinks there’s only one kind of hero and it’s him. He wasn’t into a new approach.’

‘Really not into it.’ Kevin emphasises. ‘I mean, he hated it.’

‘And that’s the reason that The Deep has done,’ she scrolls ostentatiously through the file on her tablet, ‘really, well, nothing since he joined the Seven almost a decade ago.’

‘Hey, what the hell!’ Kevin objects. ‘I’ve done stuff.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with him, if that’s what you mean.’ Liam’s hackles are starting to rise.

Kevin splutters. ‘Of course, of course there’s nothing wrong with me.’

Mallory’s turned her calculating glare to Liam now. ‘Are you sure? Because if we’re going to bring him in on this, he needs to be competent. He needs to be responsible for his own actions. He may even need to testify at a later date. More importantly, I may have to be responsible for his actions and I may have to testify.’

‘He’s competent.’ Liam grits.

‘Is he?’ Mallory returns her gaze to her tablet. ‘On his intake to the Seven he was described as “extremely impressionable, credulous and easy to manipulate”. His IQ was evaluated at 78.’ Starlight snorts.

‘I don’t think you needed to say that in front of everyone.’ Kevin says, wounded. ‘I told you, I’m not good at tests. And I remember that test, it was bullshit. I didn’t understand any of it.’

Mallory raises her eyebrows at Liam. Liam leans back. ‘Have you ever heard the expression, “if a lion could speak, we wouldn’t be able to understand it”?’

Mallory frowns. ‘Wittgenstein. The idea is that a lion’s experience of life and the world is so vastly different from our own that even if we shared a language, we wouldn’t be able to communicate.’

Liam nods. There’s a pause as Mallory considers.

‘What?’ Butcher demands. ‘We wanna know if this fishy fuck’s gonna help us or if he’s gonna sit at the back of the classroom eating the fucking glue. What’s some Wankenstein bloke and his lion got to do with it?’

‘What I think Lamplighter is suggesting,’ Mallory says carefully, ‘is that Deep’s powers cause his brain to run along slightly different lines to everyone else’s.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Starlight mutters.

‘Exactly.’ Liam says, ignoring her. ‘So if he can’t solve algebra or be trusted with a shopping list,’ he shrugs, ignoring Kevin’s disgruntled _Hey_ , ‘well, he can communicate with more than twenty thousand different species of animal, so I’m not gonna sweat it.’

‘But not lions,’ Kevin clarifies. ‘Only fish. And marine mammals.’

Liam closes his eyes for a moment. MM starts to laugh his deep chuckle, and Frenchie joins in a moment later. Even Hughie looks amused. 

Kevin smiles uncertainly.

‘Can I get changed?’ He asks suddenly. ‘I’m like really uncomfortable in this.’

Mallory nods. ‘Make it fast, we have work to do, after all.’

‘Right.’ Kevin stands up, rubbing his hands on his legs. ‘Where did I put my… Where’s my bag? Liam, did you bring my bag inside? Is it still in the van, or…’

‘It’s by the door.’ Liam tells him.

‘Go through that door to your left. You can use that room.’ Mallory tells him. That’s the room Liam’s been sleeping in. Well, this house is big but there aren’t infinite bedrooms, he won’t be upset if they have to share.

‘Well,’ Butcher says to Liam as Kevin disappears, ‘I’m so glad you invited the fucking comic relief. Things were starting to get a bit fucking tense.’

‘Killing a whale is illegal in the United States.’ Liam tells him blandly.

Butcher starts to ramp up. ‘I don’t give a fuck about that fucking –’

‘Are we actually doing this?’ Starlight cuts across him. ‘We’re actually trusting The Deep with something this important?’

‘If he has information, we can use him.’ Mallory tells her.

‘But –’ Liam gets up. He can allow Starlight her outrage, but he’s not interested in listening to it.

He goes into the bedroom he’s been sleeping in. Kevin is there, already in his leggings, taking his t-shirt off. Liam shuts the door behind him.

‘Woah,’ Kevin jumps, looks around at him. ‘I’m sorry, man, is this your room?’

‘I’ve been sleeping here.’ Liam confirms, eyes on Kevin’s back.

Kevin covers his abdomen with his hands self-consciously. ‘Don’t look, ok.’

‘I’m not looking.’ Liam lies.

Kevin looks back over his shoulder, smiles a little. ‘Of course you’re looking, I mean who wouldn’t.’

‘Want your vest?’ Liam offers.

‘Yeah.’

Liam picks it up off the bed, but he doesn’t put in KJ’s outstretched hand, steps up close behind him instead, breathes against his skin, helps him shrug it on. Kevin inhales deeply.

‘Liam,’ he says roughly.

Liam has to step back, sit on the bed, before he wrecks them both.

‘I want to know what’s going on now,’ Kevin says in a small voice, ‘please.’

Liam stares off, wonders if he’ll be able to get the words out. ‘They want to take down Vought.’ He says.

‘Riiiiight,’ Kevin frowns, ‘and?’

‘And Homelander. And I guess that Stormfront woman too.’

Kevin’s eyes widen. ‘Homelander! Oh my god. How?’

Liam shrugs, presses him lips together. ‘That’s what they’re still figuring out.’

‘Oh my god.’ Kevin says again. ‘This is some crazy shit.’

‘Yeah,’ Liam replies, ‘but we’re doing it.’

Kevin folds his arms. ‘Let’s leave.’ He says, looking at Liam sharply. ‘If they think they can stop Homelander, that’s great, but we should go.’

Liam shakes his head. ‘Can’t.’

‘Why not?’ Kevin demands. ‘Liam, this is crazy. You know how crazy this is. We have to _go_.’

Liam puts a hand to his face for a moment. ‘I did something. And now I have to deal with this.’

‘What? What do you mean, did something? What did you do?’

‘Do you remember when I…’ Liam swallows, ‘that night I… when I was in your shower.’

Kevin looks confused. ‘When you were crying,’ he smiles sympathetically, ‘you were crying like a lot, man, I mean you wouldn’t stop.’

‘Yeah, then.’ Liam says heavily.

Kevin frowns, remembering. ‘And that was when you said it was over, you didn’t wanna be with me anymore. Which, like, seemed a bit unfair ‘cause you were in _my_ shower. But that’s ok, I guess, no big deal.’

Liam takes a deep breath. Perhaps there were some things about Kevin he hadn’t missed. ‘That woman in the other room, Grace Mallory, she had photos of us.’

‘Photos of us?’ Kevin’s disconcerted. ‘Like, like us… fucking?’

‘Yeah, they couldn’t really tell it was you though. They just knew it was me and a guy.’

‘And you didn’t tell them, right?’

‘Well, not at the time, no. I have now.’

‘What the fuck, man, it was supposed to be a secret!’

‘That’s really the least of our worries right now.’ Liam snaps. ‘Look,’ he takes a calming breath, he’s lost some of his knack for keeping Kevin focused, ‘can I just tell you what happened?’

Kevin looks chastened. ‘Yeah, right, sorry. My bad.’

‘Sorry. Just, look, it’s really bad, ok?’ Kevin nods seriously. ‘Mallory showed me the photos. She wanted me to give her information about Vought.’

‘Like _blackmail_?’ Kevin asks, scandalised.

‘Yeah, KJ, exactly like blackmail. But I… I got scared. I didn’t want to risk someone having those photos. So I…’ he swallows, ‘I set her house on fire. I wanted to kill her.’

‘But she didn’t die.’ Kevin observes, wide eyed.

‘No, she wasn’t in the house. Her grandchildren were.’ Liam chokes a little on the last.

There’s a pause as Kevin looks at him. ‘Her grandchildren.’ He says uncertainly.

‘They died.’ Liam tells him frankly.

‘Oh my god!’ Kevin lowers his voice. ‘Liam that’s so bad. We have to leave. I won’t tell anyone, I promise, but we really have to go.’

Liam laughs hollowly. ‘They already know it was me, it’s not a secret.’

‘They know?’

‘Yeah, Kevin, her house spontaneously caught fire the day after she tried to blackmail me. They knew exactly who it was.’

‘Shit,’ Kevin breathes. ‘But we were all just sitting there together. And she has a gun. Why hasn’t she…’ he makes a finger gun, ‘pow.’

Liam shrugs. ‘She put her gun to my head. I told her to pull the trigger. She didn’t. I guess she thinks I might be useful instead.’

‘Instead? Or first?’

‘I don’t know.’ Liam examines his shoes. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course,’ Kevin sounds shocked, ‘of _course_ it matters.’ He kneels down beside Liam, wraps him in a hug. ‘I’m so sorry that happened to you, it must have been awful.’

Liam leans into him, can’t stop himself, even if he doesn’t deserve the comfort. ‘It’s not me you should be saying that to.’

Kevin draws back to look at him. ‘It was an accident, though. You would never hurt any kids.’

‘I was trying to kill Mallory. I don’t think you can call it and accident just because I got the wrong people.’

‘A mistake,’ Kevin decides, ‘you made a mistake. And you feel really bad about it. I can tell. So… so we’ll do this thing for that Mallory chick, and then it’ll be done.’

‘Just like that, huh?’ Liam asks.

‘Yeah,’ Kevin squares his shoulders, still kneeling on the floor, like all of Liam’s dreams come true. ‘You wanted me here to help, right? That’s what they said out there.’ He gestures beyond the door. ‘Well here I am. How can I help?’


	4. Chapter 4

Kevin’s got a real spring in his step as he goes back to the sitting room. Liam knows it’s because he has something that can help, and he’s looking forward to proving his sceptics wrong. He sits himself smugly back on the sofa. Liam feels a little smug too, honestly.

‘I take it Lamplighter has explained what we’re trying to do here?’ Mallory asks archly.

Kevin juts his chin. ‘You want to take down Homelander.’

‘That’s one of the things we want, yes. Can you help?’

‘I can help you show everyone what a piece of shit he is. I can’t help you kill him, you’re on your own with that. But I assume if you’ve been after him for a while you already have a plan for that.’ Looks are exchanged. Kevin glances at Liam. ‘They have a plan for that right?’ Liam shrugs. ‘Ooookaaaaay.’

‘We have some ideas.’ Frenchie volunteers. ‘Nothing we’re certain of.’

‘You do your bit, and we’ll do our bit.’ Mallory tells him. ‘You have compromising information about Homelander?’

‘Oh my god, loads.’ Kevin smiles humourlessly. ‘But I’ve got more than information, too. I’ve got evidence.’ He frowns. ‘Well, not like got, I haven’t got it with me or anything, but I know where it is.’

‘Maybe,’ Butcher says, ‘you’ll be kind enough to share it with us before we all fucking die of old age.’

Kevin face goes sulky. ‘I’m getting there, alright. Vought records everything that happens in the Tower. They have cameras everywhere, even in our private rooms. Except Homelander’s, right? And they keep _everything_. Anything he’s done in the Tower, Vought have. And I can tell you, he’s done a lot of bad shit.’

Mallory’s eyes light up. ‘What do you mean they keep everything? Is it on a cloud?’

Kevin shakes his head. ‘Nah, cloud is easy to like hack or whatever. It’s all on hard drives, old school. They keep them in the basement.’

‘How do you know this?’ Mallory’s not one to get her hopes up before she’s crossed her ‘t’s.

Kevin smirks. ‘Well, a few years back, Homelander found out something about me,’ his eyes slide away, ‘me and Liam, whatever, doesn’t matter. But I wanted to know how, how he knew, right? So I got a little _close_ with one of the chicks who works on the fourth floor. That’s Facilities Management, you know. She told me all about it.’

‘In the basement?’ Mallory repeats.

‘Yeah, I’ve seen them. Brooke took me down there, told me it’d be a good place to have a quickie, but actually it was just really dusty. And there were these spiders. Anyway, they were definitely there.’

Mallory looks at Butcher. ‘Think you can get them?’

Butcher sucks his teeth. ‘It’ll be tough one, boss. Vought’s shut up tighter than nun’s arsehole.’

Kevin laughs, amused by the profanity, smug again. ‘No need. I happen to know someone who can get them for you.’

Butcher glares at him. ‘Yeah? And who might that be?’

Kevin tells them about Maeve, about her looking for something to blackmail Homelander with. He tells them quite a lot about some halibut too, and Liam lets him keep on because he likes it, and because he enjoys seeing the smoke come out of Butcher’s ears. ‘Anyway, she’s definitely ready to be done with Homelander.’ Kevin concludes.

Mallory nods along. ‘It might be that Queen Maeve already has the evidence we need, then.’

Kevin looks at his hands, sulky again. ‘Well I don’t know if that go-pro still works, or what’s on it. I think we’ll still need the surveillance video.’

‘Better to have it than leave it with Vought.’ Mallory agrees. ‘Assuming there’s anything useful on it.’

‘There’ll at least be footage of him threatening me and Kevin.’ Liam remarks. ‘My room must have been filmed.’

‘Even in 2020, I’m not sure that would be enough to turn the public against him.’ Mallory replies.

‘But,’ Kevin says slowly, ‘if we release that video, he’ll come after me, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Liam replies, eyeing Kevin.

Kevin leans forward, excited. ‘Well then, plan A, there’s enough on Homelander in those videos to completely fuck him over. Plan B, there’s not enough, so we release the video of him threatening me, and he comes after me.’

‘What? Why are we trying to goad him into beating you to death?’ Liam demands.

Kevin shrugs. ‘I don’t know, you can video it or something, livestream it maybe.’

‘Oh great, livestream him beating you to death.’

‘Well, you can stop him before he actually kills me, right?’

‘We don’t know we can stop him at all.’

Mallory purses her lips. ‘That might actually work.’ She says slowly. ‘Attempting to murder someone who’s accusing you of a crime is fairly incriminating.’

Kevin nods emphatically. ‘Exactly. So, plan C, the best plan. We do both. Get the video and livestream him attempting to kill me.’

There’s a pause.

‘Jesus Christ,’ MM says, ‘plan C is the best plan, is it?’

Kevin glares at him. ‘Yeah, duh. It has both plan A and plan B. So it’s the best.’

‘Then it should be Plan A.’ MM tells him.

Kevin makes a face. ‘Does that matter? It can be plan A if you want. I don’t really see why it’s a big deal –’

‘Can I talk to you?’ Liam asks, already rising, plucking Kevin up by his shoulder, ignoring his surprised _Wha-_ , pushing Kevin ahead of him towards the bedroom.

MM and Frenchie exchange a look with each other like Liam’s an angry housewife who’s just stormed into a bar to give her husband a hard time. Liam doesn’t care. He’s concerned solely with finding out what the fuck Kevin thinks he’s doing. He bundles the other man unceremoniously into their room.

‘Hey,’ Kevin complains, ‘hands off the merchandise. Jesus, dude.’

‘Have you lost your goddamn mind?’ Liam hisses. ‘I know I’ve been gone for a while, but last time I checked, suicide wasn’t your style.’

Kevin rounds on him. ‘We’ve got to get in on this.’ He hisses. ‘They wanna take down Homelander? They wanna take down Vought? Then what? Then it’ll be our turn.’

‘So you’d rather Homelander did it first?’ Liam hisses back.

‘No,’ Kevin says, folding his arms mutinously, ‘but I think you can kill him.’

‘We have no idea if we can kill him. We have no idea if anything can kill him.’ Liam huffs a breath. ‘And you want to be bait in the hope that the CIA can pull something out of their asses.’

‘Not the CIA.’ Kevin fixes him with his intense stare. ‘You. I think you can kill him.’

Liam blinks. ‘Me?’

‘You’re the only one he’s scared of.’

‘He’s not scared of me.’ Liam replies sharply. ‘Or anyone.’

‘He is,’ Kevin insists. He looks around like someone might burst in on them, leans in closer. ‘I’ve seen how careful he is around you. He’s not like that with anyone else, ok? And he never used to mess with me when you were around.’

Liam leans back, looks Kevin over. ‘Does he mess with you now?’

Kevin shrugs, eyes sliding away. ‘We can talk about that another time. Whatever. It’s not important. The point is,’ he perseveres over Liam’s protest, ‘the point is, the CIA’s – what? – crack squad of jerkoffs out there. They don’t know shit about Homelander or Vought. Or supes or anything. You’re the one that can kill him.’

‘We don’t know that.’ Liam says more gently, touched a little by Kevin’s faith, but disturbed too.

‘Your fire is hot enough to burn him, you… you said so yourself, right? You told him you’d burn his face off. And he believed you.’

‘That doesn’t mean it’s true. I was angry, talking shit. That’s one hell of a gamble to take, KJ.’

Kevin’s eyes blaze again, he steps close enough that Liam can feel his breath, can imagine closing the distance. ‘We have to do this. ‘Cause that Mallory chick? Yeah, maybe she’s _kinda_ hot, but she’s also scary as shit. And I don’t think she’s the type to let that thing with her grandkids go. When she’s done with you, I’m pretty sure she’ll kill you, or lock you up somewhere at least.’

‘Yeah, well maybe that’s fine with me.’

Kevin’s face goes hard. ‘That’s not true. If that was true, I know you, Liam, if that was true, you’d do it yourself, you wouldn’t be waiting for someone else to put a bullet in you.’

Liam looks away, because maybe that’s true. ‘What’s your point?’

‘That if we’re the ones to do this, we do it publicly, so everyone sees, then they can’t put you in a dark hole and throw away the key afterwards. And they can’t send me back to Sandusky, Ohio, either.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

Kevin rolls his eyes, impatient. ‘C’mon man, think about it. We make a big deal about how we’re together. Were together. Whatever. Homelander tries to kill me, you kill him, it’s hot. Chicks dig that shit now. And the CIA yeah, they can’t have it both ways. If Homelander’s the bad guy, and you kill him, then you can’t be the bad guy too.’ Kevin gives him a challenging look. ‘Yeah?’

Liam thinks, sighs, sighs again deeper. ‘I don’t think it matters what I say anyway. Mallory seemed to like your idea. Not much choice now.’

‘Better make sure I don’t die, then.’ Kevin smiles at him, and Liam feels it, hot and cold, and his heartrate spiking.

‘Maybe I’ll let him kill you, just for the trouble you cause me.’ Liam steps closer.

Kevin doesn’t look worried. ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

‘No?’ Liam leans in.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’ Liam asks against his lips.

Kevin kisses him, quick and scorching, the hard press of lips, a graze of stubble, the soft flick of tongue. Liam kisses back, grabs the front of Kevin’s vest, pushes up against him.

‘Fuck,’ Kevin murmurs. ‘Fuck, that’s hot. Is this ok? I mean… Fuck.’

Liam pulls him back in, kisses him hard. They’re out of control for a moment. Liam breaks off, rests his forehead against Kevin’s. They both breathe.

‘We have to go back out there.’ Liam tells him, tells both of them.

‘Yeah?’ Kevin asks on a laugh. ‘Like this?’ He looks down to where they’re both hard in their pants. ‘I don’t know, man, I will if you will.’

‘Shit.’ Liam says, feeling like he’s run a marathon. ‘So much fucking trouble, I swear to god.’

Kevin closes his eyes, leans into him. ‘Just like old times.’


	5. Chapter 5

Liam asks for his phone again, dials Maeve on speaker for the whole room to hear. She answers on the second ring.

‘Who is this and how did you get this number?’ She asks flatly.

‘Hello to you too, Maeve.’ Liam replies sardonically.

‘Lamplighter?’ She says, surprised. ‘I thought you might be dead.’

Liam smiles briefly. ‘Yeah, me too. Anyway, I just wanted to call you to check in, make sure you were ok. I saw everything in the news, you know. But I’m sure you’re busy, so why don’t you call me back when you can?’

He hangs up over Maeve’s hesitant _right_.

‘What the hell was that?’ Mallory demands.

Liam shrugs. ‘Vought phones are tapped. She’ll call me back on a different one.’

‘When?’ Mallory’s impatient.

‘When she can.’

‘If Vought phones are tapped,’ Starlight starts in suspiciously, ‘then how come you’re still using yours?’

Liam frowns at her. ‘Do I look like some sort of idiot? I’ve been working for Vought since before you could walk, kid. This isn’t my first rodeo, alright. That’s not my work phone, or any phone Vought knows about.’

‘Okay, Jeez.’ She holds up her hands in supplication.

Kevin shifts on the sofa, crosses his legs up under him, fidgeting. ‘Do you think Maeve will come?’ He asks Liam. ‘Do you think she’ll wanna help us?’

‘Just let me do the talking,’ Liam advises, smiling to soften it a little.

‘Oh yeah,’ Kevin agrees, ‘I don’t think she actually likes me that much.’

‘Does anyone actually like you?’ Starlight mutters.

Kevin looks hurt. 

‘I do.’ Liam tells her. Kevin smiles at him warmly. Liam returns his gaze.

‘My god,’ Butchers says slowly, ‘you two are fucking again already.’

There’s a ripple of cringes around the room. Starlight says _ew_.

‘Not _fucking_ fucking.’ Kevin corrects. ‘It was only like second base.’

That leads to mild uproar. ‘ _Tu déconnes_ ,’ Frenchie says. ‘Lamplighter, that is fast work, _non_?’

‘Is this really what we’re gonna talk about right now?’ Liam can’t hide his satisfaction though. Can’t stop thinking about the way Kevin had looked at him, expectantly, plaintively, like a fifteen-year-old trying to convince his girlfriend that it just _wouldn’t go down by itself_. About pushing Kevin back into the wall, putting a hand over his mouth to quiet him, jerking him off in quick, tight movements, feeling his hot breath on his palm, watching his face intently as he came.

‘No.’ Mallory says coldly. She turns icy eyes on Kevin. ‘And I never want to hear about it again.’

Kevin cowers back into the sofa. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He nods, eyes wide.

The phone rings in Liam’s hand, a number he doesn’t know. ‘Yes.’

‘It’s me.’ Maeve says. ‘This better be good, Lamplighter, I just told an old man I needed to commandeer his phone on official Seven business, but I don’t think he bought it.’

Liam smiles, he’s missed Maeve. ‘A little bird tells me you’re looking for a way to get Homelander off your back.’

Maeve’s unimpressed. ‘A little bird or a little fish?’

‘Hey, Maeve!’ Kevin calls cheerfully.

‘Fuck off, Deep.’ She snaps. ‘I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut.’ Kevin looks chastened.

‘Look,’ Liam says, ‘I don’t want any bullshit. Are you serious about getting rid of Homelander or were you just planning on standing around bitching about him some more?’

‘Why do you care?’ Maeve asks suspiciously.

‘I’m in a position to get it done. You want in?’

‘I…’ Meave hesitates, her uncertainty clear. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Now or never, Maeve. Never gonna be a better chance than this.’

She exhales, cross at being pushed. ‘Fine. I want in. What’s the deal?’

Liam explains about the surveillance recordings, explains briefly about the CIA, explains Kevin even more briefly. ‘Grab as many hard drives as you can. Then get the hell out.’

‘Bring your smoking hot girlfriend with you.’ Kevin suggests, recovered from his earlier setback.

‘Fuck off, Deep.’ Maeve snaps again.

‘Shut up.’ Liam tells him gently. ‘But he’s right,’ he tells Maeve, ‘you should bring – Elena, was it? – she’s not safe anywhere else.’

‘I don’t know…’ she unwilling to voice whatever her uncertainty is.

‘She doesn’t have to like it.’

Maeve sighs gustily again. ‘Alright. Where do I bring the drives?’

Mallory makes plans for a team to meet them in Syracuse and bring them the rest of the way. It’ll mean an overnight drive, late as it is already. Liam has a strong preference not to be the person to dig a chip out of Maeve’s shoulder in the middle of the night, and thankfully he’s not called upon to accompany them this time.

A scared-looking junior agent is summoned to make arrangements and take their orders for dinner from the nearest Burger King. Liam asks for a cheeseburger unenthusiastically, knowing it’ll be cold by the time it gets to them given the distance. Kevin looks dubious, asks for a salad, _not a chicken salad, just a salad_ , and some fries. He’s tired, Liam can see, and starting to get tetchy.

‘There’s a lake.’ Liam tells him, nodding out into the dark beyond the window.

Kevin perks up instantly. ‘Can I swim?’ He looks between Liam and Mallory. ‘I’m gonna go swim, yeah?’

Liam watches him bound out, smiles softly.

‘What’s going to be on those recordings?’ Mallory asks him.

Liam looks back at her. ‘I don’t know.’ He replies coolly.

‘But The Deep does, am I right?’

‘He hasn’t told me anything.’ Mallory raises an eyebrow at him. He shrugs, relenting. ‘Yes, I think he knows we’ll find something on them, but he hasn’t told me what.’ His stomach twists, wondering what it might be that Kevin won’t say. He’s hardly discreet, most of the time.

‘Well let’s get the cunt back in here and beat it out of him.’ Butcher makes to get to his feet. Liam tenses.

‘I don’t think that would be particularly efficient.’ Mallory says, cutting Butcher off. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow, assuming Queen Maeve does what she agreed.’ She looks at Liam, a tacit threat.

‘She will.’ Liam replies evenly.

There’s silence for a while, awkward, tense. Liam’s fingers twitched for his lighter, he wonders if he’ll ever get it back. Not that he hadn’t already identified about eight different things in the house he could use to start a fire, but nothing quite provided the same comfort as the flick and click of a zippo.

‘You were at the Sage Grove Center for a year,’ Mallory says to him slowly, ‘and you worked for Vought for a long time before that. Is there anything you know that can help us with the practical matter of killing Homelander and Stormfront?’

Liam shrugs, examines his jeans. He’s not going to repeat Kevin’s theory about his fire. ‘Homelander’s the ultimate Compound V success. Most difficult type of supe to make, most difficult to kill.’

Mallory’s examining him speculatively. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Liam sighs. ‘Okay, you’ve got four types of supe. Kind of. Four types of power, anyway, more or less.’ The room shifts a little, everyone waking up, paying attention. ‘First, there’s straightforward enhanced human attributes. Like Maeve, or A-Train. They do the same thing as normal humans, but they’re better. Stronger, or faster, or they can see better or hear better or whatever. We’ve all got a bit of that, right? All supes are a bit enhanced in general. So those kind of powers aren’t Vought’s priority when they’re trying to make us in a lab, but they’re powers that play well with the public. Everyone loves seeing A-Train run a race. Then you’ve got powers like mine, or Starlight’s. We can channel certain external forces, fire, electricity, but we can’t make our own. Right?’ He asks Starlight. ‘You can’t make your own electricity?’

‘No,’ Starlight agrees.

‘That’s not really a priority for Vought either. It’s limited. I can burn real good, but I can’t do much else. Can’t start a fire or put a fire out, can’t control what burns. It’s a blunt instrument. What Vought really like is the third type, supes who can do things no human can ever dream of doing, and don’t need any help to do it. So Homelander makes his own, you know, eye lasers, and he can fly without using anything external. That’s the dream for Vought. They want all their supes to have that kind of power, whether it’s telepathic, telekinetic, turning invisible, shapeshifting, whatever. But it’s your worst nightmare, cause you can’t stop him any way I know. If you take away my ability to make fire or Starlight’s electricity then we’re just stronger, more resilient humans. Shoot us in the head and we’ll probably die. There’s nothing you can do to make Homelander more vulnerable.’ Silence.

‘And Stormfront?’ Frenchie asks, in response to Kimiko’s gestures.

Liam stops, considers, tries to think past the paralyzing fear Stormfront has engendered in him. ‘I don’t know.’ He says finally. ‘Her powers are… I don’t know where they come from. She uses electricity, right?’

‘Plasma.’ Frenchie confirms.

‘But does that come from her, or does she take it out of the air? I don’t know.’ He looks at Starlight contemplatively. A supe who throws out electrical power and a supe who channels it. An interesting proposition. But Stormfront was so much stronger, older, and as much as Starlight was an irritant at that moment he didn’t relish the idea of sending her to her death.

‘What’s the fourth type?’ Hughie pipes up. Liam looks at him, and the boy quails a little. ‘It’s just, you said there were four types of supe. So, I was just wondering what the fourth type is.’

‘It’s mutant fucks like the Little Mermaid out there, ain’t it?’ Butcher says nastily.

Liam glowers, considers lashing out, decides not to give him the satisfaction. ‘It’s supes with permanent physical differences, yeah. So with wings, or claws, or, ok, gills. I can light a match and choose whether to throw the flame, Homelander can choose whether to laser someone in half, Kevin can’t choose whether to have gills, and he can’t choose whether to talk to fish either, it’s just how his brain is, there’s no off switch. So it’s not the kind of power Vought’s interested in, and people don’t like it. Like you said,’ he nods at Butcher, ‘mutant, right?’ He snorts, angry, remembering. ‘You know, when Kevin joined the Seven they made him watch a focus group. Showed all these women – that was his target audience, right, women aged eighteen to thirty-five – photos of his gills, and hands, and feet, and made him watch while they all said how gross it was. The group had no idea it was a real person they were talking about, they thought it was concept art, so they really went to town.’ Liam shakes his head, thinks about what that does to a person, particularly Kevin, vain as he is, thinks about how quiet he’d been afterwards, hadn’t wanted to say what the matter was, hadn’t wanted to come to bed or get undressed. He sighs. Not helpful. Off task. ‘They’d make a thousand Homelanders if they could. They’d make ten thousand. And I don’t know how you’d even kill one.’

There’s silence then, and Liam feels the exhaustion of the long day he’s had, the emotional exhaustion of having Kevin with him again, touching and kissing him again. Their food isn’t brought until after ten, but Kevin’s not back so Liam scoops up the salad with his own cold burger and carries it out to the jetty. He sits himself down at the edge, looks out over the dark water. There’s no sign that the lake is inhabited by any living thing, let alone Kevin, but Liam knows he’s out there. He pats the water beside him a few times, watching the ripples spread, and waits.

There’s nothing for a minute, just the silence of the trees and the light from the house behind him, then there’s an answering ripple in water next to him. There’re no bubbles, but as he looks into the water he sees Kevin’s face rising to the surface. Kevin appears head and shoulders above the water and rests his elbows on the jetty at Liam’s side, doesn’t take the deep breath that Liam always reflexively excepts, just smiles up at him beatifically. Whatever bullshit Vought had wanted to push, two seconds spent watching Kevin swim would tell anyone that his skill had nothing to do with lung capacity.

‘You know they have rainbow trout here?’ He says, taking his food from Liam.

‘Oh yeah? Did you guys have fun?’ Liam settles in to listen to Kevin’s aquatic exploits.

This could be it forever, he thinks, as he listens to KJ’s voice and looks out across the lake. After this, if they live, he could take them away somewhere. Not a lake, probably, Kevin prefers saltwater. Up to Alaska, maybe, where the really big whales are. Or somewhere warm, where they can sit out all year round, on the beach with a bonfire and dolphins in the surf. But they have to survive first, and that’s not something he’s prioritized for a long time. Have to deal with what he’d done, too, with what Mallory might want to do to him, and what Kevin had done. Everything so tainted and turned around and impossible to untangle in any way that could leave them free and clear and living happily.

Kevin nudges him. ‘Hey man, what’re you frowning about? It’s such a nice night.’ The water ripples as he propels himself upwards with strong kicks until his face is level with Liam’s. ‘Wanna fool around?’ He asks conspiratorially, like a teenager.

‘What?’ Liam says, instead of just saying yes, because apparently he’s a masochist who doesn’t want nice things, and apparently he’s also an asshole who likes to lash out at. ‘You want me to suck your dick?’

Kevin jerks away, surprised, stung, understanding Liam’s implication. He looks at Liam with a wounded expression before he disappears back under the water like a scorned merman. Liam closes his eyes, and shit, Kevin could stay down there all night now, had in the past, when they’d argued. Why would he even bring that up, it wasn’t like he gave a fuck about Starlight. Not that he was in favor of assaulting people, it wasn’t his style. He hadn’t thought it was Kevin’s either, they’d never played with consent and Kevin was pretty uncomplicated in his tastes. When Liam had seen on the news what Kevin done he’d been mostly surprised, honestly, and frustrated that Kevin could be so stupid, could ruin everything for himself like that. Maybe a little jealous, too, although he could recognize the absurdity of that, because it wasn’t as though Starlight was interested in Kevin, but he’d never managed to shake the possessiveness he felt for the other man. And guilty, when he thought about it, because he’d just left Kevin there, all by himself in the Tower, and Kevin clearly wasn’t coping well, hadn’t been even before Liam retired, and Liam hadn’t done anything.

Liam’s showered with water drops, and when he opens his eyes Kevin’s sitting himself on the jetty beside him. ‘Look man, that thing with Starlight was my bad, ok?’

‘Well it sure as shit wasn’t anyone else’s.’ Liam answers.

Kevin looks at his hands. ‘Do you hate me? Everyone thinks I’m an asshole now.’

Liam almost rolls his eyes. ‘I don’t… I don’t hate you, ok? And I’m not really in a position to be making moral judgements about anyone else.’

‘I’m not gonna do anything like that again.’ Kevin says sincerely.

‘I know.’ Liam nudges his leg companionably. ‘You’re reformed, right?’

Kevin snorts. ‘You saw the interview?’

‘Seems like you just needed a good woman to settle you down.’ Liam says wryly.

‘That wasn’t my idea.’ Kevin protests. ‘There’s this crazy chick who works for the Church, her name’s Carol, she like organized the whole thing. They didn’t listen to me at all.’

Liam smiles, shakes his head. ‘You really into this Church thing?’ It wouldn’t a be dealbreaker, but it’s not Liam’s idea of fun.

‘Nah,’ Kevin shrugs, ‘it’s really hard to remember all the rules. I mean, at first it was just like Vought. Smile, wave, do what the boss says. But then it got like really complicated, there’re all these different levels and you have to believe all this crazy shit. Plus, A-Train’s there now, and fuck that guy. He’s always –’

‘You said you signed papers,’ Liam remembers, ‘this morning when I called.’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin pulls a face.

‘Were any of them a prenup?’ Probably too much to hope for.

‘I don’t know, man, I didn’t really read any of them. You know I hate reading.’

‘I’ll get it sorted.’ Liam tells him. Or maybe that’s premature. ‘I mean if you want, I can get it sorted.’ He looks across at Kevin. ‘Do you… or did you want to stay married?’ Who knows, maybe she’s real nice.

‘Cassie’s…’ Kevin starts uncertainly, ‘Cassie’s great.’ He settles on. ‘But I don’t think she’s like _that_ into me. I mean she loves the Church. I just don’t think she likes me that much.’ He pauses. ‘Actually, I think she’s sleeping with Mr Adana.’ He confesses. ‘Not in a bad way,’ which amuses Liam, ‘just, like, he says he has to have “personal spiritual healing sessions” with some of the women – all the hot ones – and I think it’s just sex.’

Liam laughs properly for the first time in a long time. ‘Sorry,’ he says once he’s done. ‘The shit you get into, KJ.’

‘Sorry,’ Kevin says back. ‘Is it gonna be hard to fix?’ He asks, with the detached interest of someone whose problem it isn’t gonna be.

Not if Liam sets Adana’s house on fire. ‘Not the hardest thing we’ve gotta do right now.’

Lights start to go off in the house behind them, and Kevin looks dry enough not to drip. ‘Let’s go back in.’ Liam suggests.

Kevin hops neatly to his feet, offers Liam a hand. Liam looks up at him in all his dumb, superhero glory, and wishes he’d taken him up on his earlier offer. Well, there’s time to fix that mistake, at least. Liam takes Kevin’s hand, let’s himself be pulled up, uses the momentum to get in close to Kevin, brush their lips together. Kevin grins against him.

‘Knew you wanted to fool around.’

‘Sure, but we’ve got a perfectly good bedroom.’ 

Liam leads him inside, through the dark house, into their room. Gets his damp clothes off him, distracts him before he can think to put a t-shirt on with hot hands and kisses, keeps him quiet ‘cause there’s definitely an agent outside their window. Liam gets him on the bed, gets his own clothes off, touches Kevin, knows all the things that get him going, opens him up nice and sweet. Coaxes Kevin to ride him, kneeling above him in all his glory, and _fuck_ , this is the photo the CIA should have got if they wanted one so much. It’s as good as Liam remembers. Maybe better, ‘cause Kevin’s tight and needy and comes too soon, and Liam gets to fuck up into him while he’s quivering and sensitive. And then he wipes them down with Kevin’s only t-shirt, so he’ll stay naked like Liam likes, and Kevin’s already asleep when he turns off the lights.


	6. Chapter 6

Liam wakes suddenly when he hears the words _Oh God_ and _run_. 

He’s up and tugging on boxers and a shirt before his brain catches up and he realizes two things. Firstly, he’s alone in the room, even though he distinctly remembers falling asleep curled around Kevin, holding him nice and close, fingers brushing the soft edge of his gill. Secondly, if they were under attack, the intruders probably wouldn’t have set their assault to music.

He’s cautious anyway as he makes his way through the lounge to the kitchen. He’s greeted with a truly unexpected sight. Kevin’s at the stove, bopping along to a saccharine pop song, mixing what looks suspicious like pancake batter. Frenchie and Kimiko are perched on stools at the breakfast bar, looking at a tablet together. _Oh God, running to the alter like a track star_ some kid chirps from the phone on the counter. Liam frowns.

‘Is that my phone?’ He asks.

Kevin turns and smiles at him, sings along quietly in his solidly acceptable singing voice.

Frenchie looks up. ‘The Deep,’ he explains, ‘he asked to borrow it, and he is your _beau_ , no? So I gave it to him.’

Liam grimaces. It’s a shame, ‘cause he’d thought he and Frenchie were coming to an understanding. ‘Shit, man, you don’t just let a guy’s Spotify get fucked up like that.’ It’s really gonna mess with his algorithms. He can kiss goodbye to six Daily Mix playlists of sad 90s indie, that’s for sure. Frenchie shrugs.

‘You want pancakes?’ Kevin inquires solicitously.

‘Since when do you cook?’ Liam asks in return, instead of going to kiss him against the stove like he wants, like this is their house and they’re all alone, rather than in the house of the woman whose grandchildren he killed, with the woman Kevin assaulted upstairs somewhere.

‘When they sent me to Ohio, I had to get all my own food. Crazy, right? No meal plan or anything.’ Kevin’s scandalized by such a thing. Liam wonders if he’s realized there’s probably never gonna be a meal plan for him again.

He’s in his underwear and Kevin looks showered and neat in his suit, always disgustingly bright in the morning when he’s sober, so Liam heads back to get ready. They need to find Kevin some clothes, something that he can wear comfortably, something he can swim in too, if he can’t be persuaded to just wear trunks. Vought had put a bit of R&D into finding a material that Kevin could wear comfortably against his gills and that allowed enough water to move through for him to get sufficient gas exchange. It still wasn’t as efficient as if he swam shirtless, but neither Vought nor Kevin had been happy with the idea of showing off his torso. Liam didn’t know where they were gonna find stuff for Kevin to wear now. Maybe he could twist the CIA’s arm into recreating whatever fabric Vought had come up with, it had to have other uses too. Then they could get some normal clothes made, and KJ wouldn’t always have to look like he’d turned up for a costume party.

By the time he’s showered and dressed, the whole house smells like pancakes. Liam stops in doorway to the kitchen, and watches the sight before him. Kevin has a perfectly alright singing voice, Vought had made sure when they’d auditioned him, but what he’s really good at is dancing. His mom had sent him to every dance and gymnastics class going when he was a kid, hoping to overcome the gangly clumsiness that characterized Kevin’s movements on land. It’d been mostly successful, although Kevin’s limbs still retained a bit of their childhood awkwardness, and it had left him a very accomplished dancer. There’s another teen-pop song emanating from his phone, and Kevin seems to know all the words to this one. It’s something about cowboys, Kevin’s singing along and demonstrating line dancing for an intrigued-looking Kimiko. Liam wonders what Kevin’s mom would think if she could see Kevin now, in the company of a rag-tag group of murderers, what she’ll do if they go to the press with their relationship. Probably clutch her pearls so tightly she strangles herself. Liam can only hope.

Kimiko giggles as Kevin swings his hips exaggeratedly for a V step, thumbs tucked into his belt. He tries to persuade Frenchie, who’s apparently on pancake-flipping watch, to join in, but with little success.

‘That,’ a voice says behind Liam, ‘is bizarre.’

Liam looks around at Starlight. ‘What? They don’t have line dancing in Iowa?’

She snorts. ‘They sure do.’ She steps past him into the kitchen. ‘Going to make her suck your dick, too?’ She asks Kevin.

Kevin opens his mouth, closes it. _Palm trees_ , the song concludes decisively, _square dancing under the moon_. ‘No?’ He tries.

Kimiko laughs again, makes a few hand gestures.

‘Oh really?’ Kevin says, fascinated. ‘Is that like, actually physically possible?’ He looks at the confused expressions around him. ‘She said if I tried, she’d rip my spine out through my mouth.’ Kimiko makes another few gestures. ‘Oh yeah? And you just put, like, put your hand right in his mouth? That’s intense.’

Starlight turns to look at Liam, incredulous. ‘Don’t ask.’ Liam advises. ‘No point.’ Kevin could hold a full conversation with Black Noir, on the rare occasions Noir allowed himself to be cornered, although Liam had always half suspected that Kevin was just monologuing. If Kevin really could understand Kimiko too, there was no point Starlight interrogating him about it, he wouldn’t know how he was doing it.

Kevin busies himself taking pancake duty back from Frenchie. The others filter down as more pancakes join the pile. Mallory and her CIA lackeys have already set to work with something in the study and dining room, so their little band of misfits all stay and perch in the kitchen.

‘Blueberry fucking pancakes?’ Butcher complains as people help themselves from the stack. ‘What about a proper fucking breakfast, eggs and bacon?’

‘I’m actually vegetarian.’ Kevin tells him.

‘Are you fucking joking?’ Butcher growls.

‘These are great, babe, thanks.’ Liam says, to see the way Kevin smiles, and to spite Butcher. They are pretty good. Liam’s not sure he’d trust Kevin with a full Thanksgiving spread, but clearly he’s acquired modest cooking skills. It makes Liam a little sad that he’s missed it, missed whatever kitchen disasters had preceded Kevin being able to produce a stack of pancakes, missed Kevin’s triumph when he finally managed to make something edible.

‘Oh yeah, really good,’ Hughie chirps, ‘thanks…’ he trails off at the look Starlight gives him, but she’s eating too. Everyone is, ’cause they’re all sick of the cold drive-through food they’ve been brought the last few days.

Liam’s a little smug. No one else had bothered cooking, even though Mallory had a fully stocked kitchen. But Kevin, in that delightfully unpredictable way of his, had made breakfast for everyone, and that had to be a good thing. It was harder, surely, to murder a guy once you’d eaten his blueberry pancakes.

‘When do you think Maeve will get here?’ Kevin asks him quietly.

‘Should be soon enough.’ Liam tells him.

‘What do you think her girlfriend’s like?’ There’s nothing salacious in Kevin’s tone for once, he sounds nervous. But then, he liked to make a good impression.

‘I’m sure she’s real nice.’ Liam reassures him. Privately, he’s sure she’ll already have a dislike for Kevin.

Liam starts on the washing up when it’s apparent no one else is going to. They’re all waiting for the agents who went to meet Maeve to come back, so there’s nothing much to do. Frenchie and Hughie make a minor fracas trying to set Mallory’s big flatscreen up with the X Box that’s appeared from somewhere. Starlight comes to help with drying dishes, which means she wants something.

They’re the only ones in the kitchen, so she only has to lower her voice a little to keep their conversation private. 

‘You know, I used to really look up to you when I was a kid.’ She tells him, conversationally.

Liam snorts, hands her a bowl to dry. ‘Yeah? You wanna tell me how disappointed you are? Join the queue.’

‘No.’ She denies. ‘I just wanted to tell you, the videos, all the things you made, about control, and how to channel your power, they really helped me when I was younger.’

‘Great.’ Liam replies flatly. ‘Well, they’re gonna all need to be remade when people find out what I did, so maybe that’s a job for you.’

She nods thoughtfully. ‘You think people are gonna find out? About the kids?’

He shrugs. ‘Mallory’s kinda missed the boat on killing me quietly, but I don’t think she’s about to just let it go.’ He looks at her sidelong. ‘Would you?’

‘No one would, I guess.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t think it was just your fault, though.’

Liam stops washing the skillet. ‘What?’

‘I mean obviously you’re to blame,’ she shrugs, nonchalant, ‘but I don’t think you’re the only one.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Liam’s almost amused. ‘Who else would you blame?’

‘Well, Homelander, of course.’ She puts down the utensils she was drying to count off on her fingers. ‘He threatened you. And Vought, too. They should have done something about Homelander a long time ago. And the CIA. Mallory blackmailed you with something you shouldn’t have had to hide. You weren’t doing anything wrong, and she put you in danger.’

HE shakes his head. ‘Wow kid, you really are idealistic.’

She holds up her hands. ‘I’m just calling it like it is.’

Liam let’s that sit for a moment, rinsing off plates. ‘Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re not, but either way, I set the fire. It’s gonna be me that swings for it. And that seems… fair.’ He thinks. ‘Maybe they’ll get me for the patients at Sage Grove too.’

Starlight huffs. ‘They were dead as soon as they got injected with Compound V.’ Liam looks at her. ‘What? You’re telling me that it was option a, Lamplighter incinerates them, option b, they go home to their families? Whatever you did or didn’t do wouldn’t have prolonged their lives much.’

Liam knows that’s factually correct. There’re lots of ways to kill people in a hospital, you don’t need a pyrokinetic supe. Having him there had been more about controlling him than solving a problem with patient numbers. But burning isn’t a nice way to go, even if he’d made the flames as hot as he could so they went nice and quick. He wonders what Starlight’s hoping to get out of this conversation.

‘You know,’ he tells her, so he doesn’t have to talk about this anymore, ‘if Kevin ends up doing a press interview, you’ll have to do it with him.’

‘What?’ She’s outraged. And sidetracked. ‘What the fuck? No!’

‘Kevin’s not gonna get platformed by any decent news channel without you. Whatever story he’s gonna be telling, it’ll just sound like he’s trying to distract from what he’s done. You’re gonna have to be there to give him credibility.’ He’s sure Mallory’s thought of it, even if Starlight hasn’t.

There’s silence for a moment. ‘What’s he told you?’ She asks finally. ‘About what happened? What he did?’

Liam’s not qualified to deal with this, and it’s clearly the point of this conversation, and he’s walked straight into it. He swallows the urge to snap at her, because they need her, and because he’s not completely unsympathetic.

‘Not much,’ he answers. ‘That it was his fault. That he won’t do it again.’

Starlight looks at him, he avoids her gaze, washing forks and knives slowly. ‘He didn’t… I would have thought he’d say I… that it was consensual.’ She manages eventually.

‘No.’ Kevin’s not that kind of liar, usually.

She looks more put out than ever. ‘So he admitted that he… and you still…’

‘Yeah.’ Liam doesn’t tell her how little he cares. He’s sorry it happened to her, but amongst all the other fucked up shit he’s found he doesn’t really care that Kevin did it. Maybe a decade ago, when he was almost as foolishly idealistic as she is, it would have bothered him, definitely two decades ago he wouldn’t have countenanced fucking someone who’d done what Kevin had. But that was a long time ago, before he’d sullied his own hands so absolutely. Kevin could do a lot of things and it wouldn’t change how Liam felt about him.

‘Hmmmmm.’ She nods her head. ‘Right, ok.’

Still, he doesn’t know why her judgement bothers him, but it does. ‘Look, do you know how many people I’ve killed?’

She looks a bit taken aback, like it might be a threat. ‘No.’

‘Me neither.’ Liam tells her. ‘I lost count. But I know at least two of them were under 10. Do you know how many people Kevin’s killed?’

Her jaw tightens. ‘No.’

‘None. Zero. He wouldn’t even think about it. You know what Kevin does when he gets really mad?’ She shakes her head, not enjoying this game anymore. ‘He shouts, he slams doors, maybe he goes swimming until he feels better. But me? When I get angry, I set things on fire. Sometimes people. And I’ve seen enough of your powers to guess what happens when you lose it. So don’t come asking me to take the moral high ground.’

She’s angry enough that the lights flicker, but Liam’s irritated too, and the stove is only an arm’s reach away. He wonders if she’s about to prove his point, about both of them, but the light goes from her eyes and the tension breaks as quickly as it came.

‘I killed someone to get Hughie to a hospital.’ She admits quietly. ‘He didn’t want to give us his car and he had a gun. I think he had a baby at home.’

‘And if you hadn’t done it, your boyfriend would have died, right?’

She shrugs. ‘I didn’t need to kill him. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. Like you said, it’s what happens when I lose it.’

‘We’re not supposed to have these powers.’ Liam replies. ‘People wanna treat us like we’re superhuman, or like we’re animals, subhuman, but they’re wrong either way. We’re human, just as fucked up and fallible as anyone else, and we’re not _made_ to be able kill people with the wave of a hand. So yeah, we’ve all done the wrong thing sometimes. Try not to be too hard on yourself. If you haven’t murdered anyone in cold blood yet you’re probably doing ok.’

She thinks about it. ‘You think I shouldn’t be too hard on Deep, either.’

Liam huffs in irritation. ‘Jesus, I don’t give a shit what you think about Kevin, as long as you can do an interview next to him.’ He squints at her. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re one of those bible-bangers who thinks forgiveness is healing, right?’

She shifts, caught. ‘No. Well, I don’t know how I feel about it. My mom always says forgiveness makes room in your heart for Jesus.’

‘Oh my god.’ Liam wonders if he can sneak lighting a cigarette of the stove. But Kevin doesn’t know he’s started smoking again, and that’s not a quarrel he wants to have right now. ‘Right. I’m not gonna be involved in your personal spiritual journey. All I’ll say is, don’t have this conversation with Kevin, ok? It’ll just annoy you and he won’t understand what’s going on.’

She puffs up. ‘What’s not to understand?’

Liam snorts. ‘See, imagine how annoyed you’d be if he were actually here.’

‘Thanks,’ Starlight mutters. She puts down the fork she’s drying and stalks away, even though the dishes aren’t finished. Liam’s inordinately glad he’d never caved to his parents’ demands and had kids, had to deal with this bullshit every day.

At least he can finish the washing up in peace. He’s just putting away the last cup when he hears the front door opens, and Maeve’s voice signals her arrival.


	7. Chapter 7

Kevin’s already bouncing in the hallway like a happy Labrador.

‘Don’t touch me.’ Maeve warns him when she sees his outstretched arms. ‘Don’t touch her either.’ She tells him as Elena takes a step back.

‘Ooookaaay.’ Kevin says, a little crestfallen, but he recovers himself. ‘Wow, it’s so nice to meet you.’ He says to Elena. She nods, unimpressed. She’s clearly unaware it’s the warmest welcome she’s likely to get from any of Maeve’s colleagues.

‘So that’s The Deep,’ Maeve says, unnecessarily, ‘and that’s Lamplighter,’ she points at Liam. ‘This is Elena.’ She tells them.

Liam nods at her.

‘A room’s been made available for you upstairs.’ A harassed looking CIA minion tells the women.

Liam wonders who’s been made to share to make room. He gives Kevin a pointed look.

‘Oh, hey, lemme take your bags up.’ Kevin says, scooping them up. Liam enjoys the play of muscle in his arms for a moment, before leading Maeve and Elena through the sitting room, where some sort of first-person shooter videogame’s being played, to the kitchen.

‘You look like shit.’ Maeve tells him as they walk.

He snorts. ‘Thanks.’

‘Retirement not agreeing with you?’

‘Doesn’t seem like it, does it.’

Maeve seems to have already scared the CIA agents who collected her into submission, because they flock around getting her and Elena coffee, and bringing in the boxes of hard drives she’s acquired. Liam glares at one of them until he’s brought coffee too.

‘Wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?’ Maeve asks once she’s set up at the breakfast bar with her coffee.

‘The CIA wanna take down Homelander. Vought too. I’m helping.’

Maeve laughs. ‘Shit. I knew you didn’t like him, but somehow I hadn’t pictured you siding with the CIA against Vought.’

Liam shrugs. ‘I owe some debts here.’

‘Alright.’ Maeve gives him a long look. ‘Alright. So you’re gonna take down Homelander. How exactly were you planning to do that? And what’s Deep doing here? I can’t imagine him being your first call for this.’

Might as well bite the bullet. ‘We’re fucking.’

Maeve slops a little coffee on herself. ‘Is that a joke?’

‘No.’

‘I can see it.’ Elena chips in. ‘He’s kinda a secret snack.’

‘A what?’ Maeve demands.

‘A secret snack.’ Elena shrugs. ‘Like, you’d fuck him, but you wouldn’t tell anyone.’ Liam huffs. Maeve looks horrified. ‘Well I wouldn’t fuck him, obviously.’ Elena continues. She looks sideways at Maeve. ‘But maybe you would. You like a pretty boy.’

‘No!’ Maeve’s disgusted. ‘Urgh, oh my god, no. He’s got, like, gills.’

‘Who has gills?’ Kevin asks, coming to join them in the kitchen. ‘Oh. Duh.’

Maeve doesn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Lamplighter tells us you’re fucking.’ She says bluntly.

Kevin looks at Liam, back at Maeve, wide eyed. ‘Uh, yeah.’

‘Just like that?’ Maeve says, apparently annoyed.

‘Just… just like what?’ Kevin asks, nonplussed.

There’s silence for a moment. ‘What’s this grand plan then?’ Maeve asks eventually.

Liam explains. They’ll look at the recordings, Kevin will do an interview based on what they find, Homelander will come after Kevin and they’ll kill him.

Maeve looks extremely skeptical. ‘And you’re happy being bait, are you, Deep?’

‘I want to help.’ Kevin says, and Liam knows that’s the other side of it, the side he hadn’t bothered Liam with yesterday. As much as wanting to be safe, needing to be in the CIA’s good books, Kevin wants to be useful.

Maeve shakes her head, looks at Liam. ‘You’re going along with this?’

‘It might work. And anyway, I’ve got limited say in decisions here.’

‘Really?’ Maeve rolls her eyes. ‘I can’t imagine you letting people get away with putting him in danger. I remember how protective you were of him the first few years he was in The Seven, and that was before you were even sleeping together.’

Kevin’s face gives it away before Liam has to say anything.

‘Oh my god.’ Maeve says. ‘How long have you two been at it?’

Liam hesitates, unsure of how to explain, the best five years of his life, the best sex of his life, by Kevin’s side as much as he could be, and then the five worst. ‘We got together almost as soon as he came to Vought.’ Liam exhales. ‘But then, we weren’t together for a while.’

‘Is this about that breakdown you had?’ Maeve asks. Liam raises an eyebrow. ‘I do notice some things, you know. One day you were Vought’s golden boy, the next you’re a ghost. Don’t tell me all that was over a breakup?’

Liam snorts. ‘Not exactly.’ Kevin’s watching him quietly, concerned. ‘I did something bad, and like I said, now I have a debt I can’t repay.’

‘A debt to the CIA?’

‘A debt to me.’ Mallory’s standing in the entrance to the dining room. ‘We’re ready in here to view the recordings.’ She gestures them into the dining room. ‘Gentlemen,’ she calls through to the sitting room, ‘it’s time to stop playing games.’

The dining room is crammed full of people, there’re agents there to do the tech side of things, more taking notes, and all of Butcher’s group is there to spectate. Mallory directs Kevin to a seat beside her, giving him a hard look. Liam leans against Kevin’s chair, in the absence of a spare one for him, and eyes the hard drives distrustfully. They seem to have a malevolent presence all of their own, Liam feels a bit sick looking at them, knowing he’s about to find out whatever Kevin hasn’t been telling him. Maeve’s been diligent in retrieving them, brought several large boxes of drives, all labelled neatly with dates going at least four years back. There must be tens of thousands of hours of recording stacked up on the dining room floor.

‘It’s going to take a very long time if we have to go through all of these hour by hour.’ Mallory says to Kevin. ‘So why don’t you save us some time and tell us where we should be looking?’

Kevin looks at his hands, wets his lips. ‘Now, I don’t know for sure.’ He starts. ‘But for a while there was this dead zone outside my room, right? Like, it wasn’t covered by any of the cameras.’

Mallory smiles coldly. ‘Well that doesn’t really help us, does it?’

Kevin shakes his head. ‘No, but then they put a camera in, yeah. And I don’t think Homelander realized for a while that they’d done it, because I think it was already there when he… well…’

‘When?’ Mallory asks.

Kevin gives a date, about three years ago. He even gives a time. Which is a bad thing, because Kevin’s no better with dates than you’d expect him to be. Liam clenches his hand on the back of Kevin’s chair. There’s a bit of general faffing as agents find the right drive and get it hooked up to the laptop, and the young woman responsible for playing the recording finds the right file for the camera outside Kevin’s room. It’s there, which is a promising sign. Or a bad sign, maybe, because now Liam’s going to have to watch whatever happened.

The agent finds the right time, late at night, and presses play. Everyone draws in to watch. The laptop shows Kevin come down the corridor with an attractive young woman. They’re all dressed up, they’re wrapped up in one another, and Kevin pauses to kiss her against the wall outside his room.

She gasps, giggles, asks him, ‘What should I call you?’

‘Well my name’s Kevin.’ Kevin tells her smiling.

She hesitates, giggles again. ‘Maybe I’ll just keep calling you The Deep.’

‘Sure,’ he tells her, presses her into the wall again. _Dumb bitch_ Liam thinks.

‘What do we have here?’ A different voice asks, and Homelander appears into shot.

Kevin looks up. ‘Oh hi, man.’

There’s a tense pause as Homelander looks at the couple.

‘Well, Deep, aren’t you going to introduce me?’ Homelander says.

Kevin’s eyes are wide. ‘Oh yeah sure. This is…’. He frowns.

‘Macey,’ the girl supplies.

‘This is Macey! Macey, this is Homelander.’ Kevin’s got that frozen smile on his face that Liam knows means he’s uncomfortable.

‘Hi,’ Macey says, shy now, hiding a little behind Kevin’s shoulder.

‘Aren’t you delightful.’ Homelander says to her. He looks at Kevin. ‘You can run along inside now.’

Kevin’s confused, but he tugs on Macey’s hand. ‘Ok, man. Come on, babe.’

‘No.’ Homelander says, voice hard. ‘Just you, Deep.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I can leave.’ Macey says, uncertain, a little scared.

Homelander smiles at her, flashes his teeth. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

Kevin’s frowning, tense. ‘Homelander, what’s going –’

‘Go inside!’ Homelander shouts, cutting across Kevin’s question, scaring Macey properly. He takes a hold of Macey’s arm and jerks her away from Kevin.

Kevin’s eyes are panicked now. He grabs at Homelander, says, ‘Hey, man, let her go.’

Homelander slams Kevin into the wall with a hand at his throat. ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’

Macey screams a little and Kevin struggles in Homelander’s grip. He can’t get free though, and Homelander’s fingers are pressing on the sides of his neck, cutting off the blood supply, and he’s out of it pretty quick. Homelander lets him go and he slumps to the floor, then turns his attention to the girl. Liam doesn’t watch the rape, he looks at Kevin’s small figure in the bottom corner of the screen, hoping he doesn’t wake up, that he doesn’t try to be a hero, but it’s no use. Kevin comes to on the floor with a jerk, breathes heavily for a moment, and then reaches a shaky hand out to grab Homelander’s ankle. He manages to pull Homelander off balance for a second, but Homelander shakes him off easily. Then he stamps on Kevin’s hand hard enough that the crack of breaking bone is audible. He kicks at Kevin’s head, catching him in the jaw and bloodying his mouth, kicks him again, makes contact with his temple, and knocks him out. Then he turns his attention back to Macey.

By the time Kevin’s waking up on the screen, Homelander’s long gone, and Macey’s gathered herself together as best she can and made her escape. Kevin pushes himself up a little with his good hand, spits out a few teeth and a mouthful of blood onto the hallway floor. He looks around and finds himself alone, and struggles to his feet.

Mallory signals and the video is paused. Liam looks at Kevin’s swollen face on the screen, the way he cradles his broken hand, and wonders bitterly where the hell he was for this. Probably avoiding the Tower and taking jobs as far away from New York as his contract allowed.

‘Can we find that girl?’ Mallory asks her minions.

There’s a flurry of talk and activity. If they want to show the video on the news it’ll have to be edited, her face blurred, the footage censored and sanitized. She should probably be found anyway and put into protection. There’s five minutes of frantic typing and phone calls. Kevin doesn’t know who she is, surprise surprise, just met her at a party and brought her home. He hadn’t been expecting anything like that from Homelander. He doesn’t know what happened to her. Liam feels selfishly grateful that this was it, that it was the girl who came off worse, that Kevin got away with a few kicks and a damaged hand.

‘This is a good start.’ Mallory says. ‘Now what else is there?’

Kevin’s quiet, he looks up at Liam over his shoulder, then around the room, then at his hands. Then he gives another date, about a month later, and another time.

The tech agent finds it and fast forwards until there’s movement on the screen. Liam’s expecting Kevin and another girl, but it’s Homelander who appears, striding down the corridor to knock on Kevin’s door.

Kevin answers, looking sleep-ruffled and groggy. He does a comedy double take at the sight of Homelander, then says, ‘Oh hey man, how’s it going?’

Homelander’s doing that face he does when he’s pretending to be nice. ‘Just came to see how you were. I know things got a little rough the other week.’

Kevin gives an uncomfortable little laugh. ‘Don’t sweat it, man. It’s no big deal. My teeth grew back and everything.’ He pulls at his lip a little to show him.

Homelander looks disgusted. ‘That’s… fascinating. Anyway, I wanted to have a little talk with you. Why don’t you step out here?’

‘Right, yeah, sure.’ Kevin’s face is frozen again in a polite smile.

Homelander thinks there are no cameras in the corridor, Liam realizes. So does Kevin.

When they’re both in the hall, Homelander adopts that friendly smile again. ‘We’re teammates, right, Deep?’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin agrees cautiously.

‘And teammates help each other out, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So why is it, then, that you haven’t brought a single woman back to the Tower since Macey?’ Homelander’s showing his teeth.

Kevin shrugs expansively. ‘Well you know how it is, man, some girls like to go back to theirs.’

‘I’d like it if you started bringing them here again.’

Kevin looks confused, then his eyes widen. He opens his mouth, closes it. Then he smiles awkwardly, punches Homelander lightly on the arm. ‘Hey man, you’re… you’re Homelander. You don’t need _me_ picking up chicks for you.’

Homelander smiles indulgently, leans in. ‘You’re right, of course. But the thing is, Deep, I’ve had a few… incidents. There’ve been, let’s say, disappearances. If I were to bring a woman home myself, there could be some unfortunate accusations made.’

‘Riiiight.’ Kevin says, nodding seriously. Liam thinks for a moment he’s going to agree. ‘Well, I do get that, man, really. But I’m just not sure I’m super comfortable, you know, with picking up girls for you.’

Homelander’s face contorts, he slams Kevin into the wall again. ‘I think you’ll find I can persuade you.’ He says, and he punches Kevin in the face.

Kevin’s head snaps sideways, but when he’s recovered he still shakes his head no. Homelander punches him again, and again.

‘Changed your mind?’ He asks.

‘No.’ Kevin croaks.

Homelander hits him again, then holds him up to look at him. Kevin looks back with unusual resolve in his eyes. 

Homelander smirks. ‘Well, maybe you can help me out in another way then.’

‘Wha-’ Before Kevin can even ask, Homelander releases his hold and punches him in the stomach, crumpling him to his knees.

Then Homelander starts to undo his belt.

‘Stop.’ Mallory orders sharply, and the video’s paused immediately. ‘I want all non-essential personnel out.’

That leads to a bit of confusion, because no one’s entirely sure who’s non-essential. Maeve and Elena go without being told, Maeve very pale. All the agents are sent out, even the one operating the laptop. MM, Frenchie, Kimiko and Hughie are all dismissed. Starlight stays, because she’ll need to know what happened for the interview, and Butcher stays through sheer force of glaring at everyone else. Liam doesn’t move, he’s not sure he could, he feels numb, gripping the back of Kevin’s chair.

‘Am I supposed to go, or should I stay?’ Kevin asks Mallory.

She looks at him for a moment. ‘I think you should stay, in case we have any questions, but of course you don’t have to watch the footage.’

‘Right.’ Kevin murmurs.

When they’re all settled again, Mallory starts the video. Kevin on the screen is panting, too winded to speak. Homelander gets himself out of his pants, squeezes the sides of Kevin’s face until his mouth opens wide enough. Kevin struggles a bit then, but he’s easily overwhelmed. Liam feels his pulse spike, he wants to set something on fire. He wants to smash the room up. He wants to set the whole world on fire. He doesn’t move though, he watches until Homelander’s done and zipped himself up and kicked Kevin hard in the stomach and walked away. 

Starlight gets up and stalks out of the room.

On the screen, Kevin’s trying to get up. There’s a shimmer of movement at the edge of the picture, and Kevin croaks, ‘Have you been watching this whole time?’

Translucent appears out of the air. ‘No.’ He says.

Kevin coughs. ‘That’s bullshit.’

‘I was watching,’ Translucent admits, ‘but what could I do?’

‘It’s fine, man.’

Translucent helps Kevin up. ‘I’m going to tell Lamplighter. He’ll deal with this.’

Kevin grips his arm. ‘No. C’mon man, don’t do that. There’ll be a big fight. Just help me inside.’

Translucent huffs. ‘Fine, but I’m going to Stillwell tomorrow and telling her to put her dog on a leash. This can’t happen on the team.’

Liam doesn’t hear whatever Kevin says, doesn’t watch him hobbling to his room. He turns around and walks out of the dining room, and keeps walking until he’s outside and there’s no one to see him and he can breathe.


	8. Chapter 8

Liam stands on the shingle of the little beach by the lake. He shuts his eyes tight, hears the birds in the trees, feels the stones under his feet. He takes some breaths. His adrenaline’s still spiking, he wonders if he’s shaking, he feels like he should be, but he’s too numb to tell. It’s a long time before he feels his heartrate come down.

There’s a footstep on the stone behind him. He whipstt around, but it’s only Starlight.

‘Hey,’ she says lightly. She holds up her hands, smiling a little. ‘It’s me, don’t shoot.’

‘Jesus,’ he says, ‘what do you want now?’

She sidles up to him, looks out over the lake. ‘You know, I never would have guessed.’ She says. ‘That Homelander did that to The Deep.’ Liam scowls reflexively, wonders if he would have guessed. Should have guessed, maybe. Maybe he had. Maybe that was why he’d been so reluctant to ask Kevin about the recordings. ‘They always seemed pretty cozy actually.’

Liam shrugs, thinks about leaving Kevin alone in Vought Tower, thinks about how scared he must have been, how defenseless. Maeve and Noir could look after themselves, and Translucent and A-Train could make themselves scarce whenever things got out of hand. He thinks of Kevin, stuck in Homelander’s warpath, not knowing how to escape, not wanting to make things worse. And what the fuck had he been thinking? Dragging Kevin into the mess that was Vought. Leaving him to navigate it by himself.

‘It’s a defense mechanism, right?’ He tells her. ‘Fight, flight, freeze, fawn? Only one of those is really an effective response when it comes to Homelander.’

She makes a face. ‘It’s pretty fucked up that he had to do that to stay safe.’

‘So what?’ Liam sneers, because lashing out feels good right now. ‘Now you feel sorry for him you’re gonna forgive all his sins?’

She snorts inelegantly. ‘God, no. If anything it makes me more angry. Why would he do that to me when he’d been through it himself?’

‘I wouldn’t bother examining Kevin’s motives too closely.’ She probably wouldn’t find anything she liked.

‘Do you think it that was the only time?’ She asks him, nonchalant. ‘Or do you think it was like a regular thing for Homelander to –’

‘Christ, don’t.’ Liam interrupts, feeling his anger spike again. ‘Those pines look pretty flammable, it’d be a shame if this whole forest went up in flames.’

She looks at him with interest. ‘I thought you needed a lighter to set things on fire.’

He huffs. ‘I do, but…’ But there are two twigs scraping against each other with just a little too much friction not that far away, and the stones under his feet could spark off one another if he moved his foot just right. ‘Better not to take the chance.’

‘Sorry.’ She says unrepentantly. ‘You know, some of what Homelander said on the tape, that bullshit about teamwork? Deep said that to me. When he… you know. Do you think he actually believes it?’

Liam rolls his eyes, sighs, wonders how drunk Kevin had been. Not that that was any excuse. Liam had been drunk a lot of times. ‘I’m not your therapist, kid. I’m not Kevin’s either.’

She nods, pressing her lips together for a moment. ‘Guess you really wanna kill Homelander now, huh?’ She says after a pause.

‘You could say that.’

‘He’s so strong though.’ She shakes her head. ‘And Stormfront, we haven’t even thought about where to start with her.’

Liam cringes internally. He doesn’t know why he’s so scared of Stormfront. He’d never been intimidated by Homelander, even though the guy was stronger than him. But there was something about Stormfront. She’d been there on his first day at the Sage Grove Center, told him what he’d be doing, slammed him into a wall and called him a faggot when he’d refused, had known about him somehow, and even though he’d had his lighter in his hand he hadn’t defended himself, he’d let her throw him around, and he’d done what she ordered afterwards.

‘Do you know who she is?’ He asks Starlight.

She shrugs. ‘We know she wasn’t always Stormfront, and we know she’s older than she looks. Do you know who she is?’

‘No.’ He frowns. ‘But I know she’s in with Vought way further than just being a member of the Seven. She’s got her fingers in pies I didn’t even know existed when I was Lamplighter. And she’s invested in what they were doing at Sage Grove. Personally. She wasn’t just there for the paycheck.’

‘Like you were.’ Starlight says.

Liam snorts. ‘I was there for the not getting killed. Actually, I was there for the not getting KJ killed.’ He kicks at a stone. ‘When I told Stillwell I wanted to retire, she offered me a job in Vought’s clinical research department. When I said no, she suggested the department would be pretty interested in having a look at someone who had two respiratory systems, and by look at she meant dissect.’

‘Two respiratory systems?’ She queries. ‘Oh, The Deep. Wow. That is… pretty fucked up.’

It hadn’t been the first time he’d asked to retire. He’d asked five years ago, right after he’d done what he’d done. And Stillwell had said no then, and she’d known what he’d done, and she’d twisted and shamed him into staying, into being a good boy and carrying on his Lamplighter duties. The second time, last year, when he’d finally had enough, was clearly barely holding it together, and asked again, she’d offered him an alternative role. An offer she made sure he couldn’t refuse.

‘God,’ Starlight says, ‘Vought really is just rotten to the core, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ he replies, ‘and that’s what you’re going to say in the interview. You’re gonna tell the whole world how corrupt Vought is, how they dropped the ball, how they knew Homelander was a monster and they didn’t do anything.’ And that would draw Stormfront out, if nothing else did, because whatever her motives, she was protective of Vought for some reason. And then maybe they’d see how Starlight shaped up against her. Maybe Maeve would get involved too. Those kinds of details would have to be someone else’s problem, he’d have his hands full making sure Homelander didn’t kill Kevin. If he could. Probably he’d have his hands full dying a painful death.

‘You think there’s still going to be an interview?’ Starlight’s surprised.

‘Yeah.’

‘They’re not gonna put that video on the TV.’

Liam shrugs. ‘Maybe they will if they can edit it. I’m sure the CIA have a tame news channel. And anyway, this is the scoop of the century, they’ll be queuing up, even if all they can show is twelve seconds of Homelander unzipping his pants.’ She shudders. He wonders if she’s got the stomach for this. ‘Can you do it? The interview?’

Her jaw sets. ‘I’ll do it. But I don’t know what people will make of me and Deep teaming up on this.’

He looks out over the lake. ‘You’re gonna have to do a pretty amazing job selling it.’

Starlight nods. They stand in silence for a while longer. Liam no longer feels like he’s about to shake out of his skin, but he can’t say he’s settled. He knows he needs to go back inside, plan with Mallory, talk to KJ, but he can’t quite bring himself to. He’s not equipped to have the conversation with Kevin that he knows is coming.

‘We should stop hiding out here.’ Starlight says.

Liam kicks at the shingle again. ‘Yeah.’

Back inside, there’s no video game being played anymore. The sitting room is full though, Frenchie and MM and the rest whispering to each other. They stop when Liam and Starlight come in, Hughie getting up to fret around her, but Liam ignores them. In the dining room, Mallory and her agents are still watching video footage. Liam enters in silence and looks at the screen. Mallory’s not got the sound on, but he recognizes what he’s looking at. Its himself, and Kevin, five years ago, on the worst day of his life. On the screen, he’s still crouching on the floor of the shower, Kevin standing over him, trying to get him to say what the matter is.

Mallory sees him, turns her head, gives him a look. ‘Just making sure.’ She tells him.

Making sure of what? That he was telling the truth about it being a mistake? That he hadn’t come home and popped some champagne? Liam knows what she’ll have seen. Him coming home, not to his own rooms but to Kevin’s, finding them empty, discarding his cape and cowl, stumbling to the bathroom, vomiting copiously into the toilet, curling up in the shower. He’s talking now on the screen, soundlessly, but he knows what he’s saying. Telling KJ to just take him out into the ocean and fucking drown him. And Kevin’s going white, and saying Liam’s scaring him, saying to, _please please, man, come on_ , tell him what happened. And Liam knows what’s coming next, himself standing up, yelling at Kevin to leave him the fuck alone, and how fucking stupid was he, that he couldn’t see that Liam wanted to be left alone, and storming out. Liam had almost forgotten that he’d left Kevin thinking it was his fault, that Kevin had come to find him the next day, said he was sorry, whatever he’d done, couldn’t they just – And Liam had said no, they couldn’t just anything, it was over.

He sighs, rubs a hand across his face, feels the full weight of old mistakes. ‘Happy?’ He asks Mallory.

‘Satisfied.’ She replies, pausing the footage as he’s barging past KJ. ‘It would have been helpful if your boy had given us a bit of warning about what was in these videos.’

Liam snorts, scowls at Mallory referring to Kevin that way. ‘Yeah, you’re telling me. Are you gonna be able to use any of it?’

‘Our people think we can.’ Mallory replies. ‘If it’s handled sensitively. But you’ll have to talk to Deep, we don’t want any more surprises. If we’re doing this publicly, we have to follow certain safeguarding protocols. Or at least be seen to.’

‘Christ.’ Liam rolls his eyes. ‘How about you let me handle Kevin, yeah? You guys figure out how you’re gonna take out Homelander and Stormfront.’

Mallory raises an eyebrow, coolly. ‘Thank you for that advice, Lamplighter. We’ll get right on that.’


	9. Chapter 9

Kevin’s sitting on the bed staring at his gloved hands when Liam goes to look for him. He’s smoothing his right thumb over the webbing of his left hand in a movement Liam remembers him doing from childhood. He looks up at Liam.

‘Does this mean we can’t have sex anymore?’ Kevin asks flatly.

Liam closes the door behind him, sags against it momentarily. ‘Fuck, KJ.’ He climbs up onto the bed next to Kevin. ‘Is that really what you’re worrying about right now?’

Kevin shrugs, doesn’t look at him.

Liam nudges his knee against Kevin’s leg. ‘C’mon, you know nothing could stop me wanting to fuck you.’

Kevin frowns down at his hands. ‘You did before.’

‘No.’ Liam sighs. This was the problem. They never talked until after they were done with the sex. It had been like that first time round too. ‘That wasn’t what happened. That was my fuck up, it wasn’t you.’

Kevin huffs a mirthless chuckle. ‘Is this the part where you say it’s not me it’s you?’

‘Jesus, no. Would you stop?’ Liam nudges him harder. ‘I’m not… _breaking up_ or whatever. Why would you even think that?’

‘You’re angry.’ Kevin says sulkily. ‘Don’t say you’re not, ‘cause I know you are.’

Liam looks at him. ‘Of course I’m angry. Homelander fucking really hurt you. I’m fucking furious. But not with you.’

Kevin fold his arms petulantly, biceps bulging. Liam reflects on the ridiculousness of Kevin thinking Liam would ever not wanna fuck him. ‘Is it gonna make things weird?’

‘Weird?’

‘With us.’

‘Only if you want.’

Kevin glares at him. ‘What does that mean? Why would _I_ wanna make things weird?’

‘You might…’. Liam shifts awkwardly. God, this was not a conversation he wanted to have, ever, with anyone, and definitely not someone as obtuse as Kevin. ‘You might not feel comfortable doing some stuff. Sex stuff.’

‘Sex stuff.’ Kevin repeats flatly. ‘Did last night gave you the impression I wasn’t _comfortable_?’

Liam smirks in spite of himself at the memory. ‘No.’ He sighs. ‘But you’ll tell me, won’t you, if there’re things you don’t wanna do?’

Kevin smiles at him, that full, charming smile that had started all this trouble in the first place. He places a warm had on Liam’s thigh. ‘There’s nothing I don’t wanna do with you.’

Liam smiles back. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ Kevin leans in, kisses Liam hotly. Liam kisses him back of course, leans back into the headboard, tugs at Kevin to straddle him, pulls back when he feels him grinning. ‘I can’t believe you, the horniest guy I ever met, just said ‘sex stuff’.’

Liam attempts to look offended. ‘I was trying to be sensitive.’

Kevin rolls his hips. ‘Mmmmm, I’m feeling pretty sensitive too.’

Liam’s not sure that actually makes any sense, and it’s pretty terrible as dirty talk goes, but it doesn’t stop him gripping Kevin’s hips hard as they kiss. Doesn’t stop him urging Kevin upwards either, helping him open his belt and his pants, sucking his dick. Kevin loves this so much, and Liam figures Kevin deserves a little attention after the morning he’s had. He still keeps a firm hold of Kevin’s hips though, ‘cause Kevin has a tendency to get a little carried away and forget his manners. He enjoys the feeling of Kevin’s muscles flexing under his hands, as Kevin gasps and swears above him. Kevin doesn’t last long, soon he’s slumped back in Liam’s lap, catching his breath against Liam’s shoulder. Liam holds him a little. They’ve never really cuddled. Kevin likes a robust hug, but anything more drawn out just turned into sex. But this feels nice right now, even if Liam’s still hard in his jeans.

Eventually KJ stops nuzzling at his neck and starts kissing him again, fumbling Liam’s fly open. Liam murmurs to him to take off his gloves, because _he_ loves the feeling of Kevin’s hands on him, and Kevin only hesitates briefly before stripping them off, spitting in his hand, jerking Liam off tightly. Liam has to admit he doesn’t really last either, it’s too good having Kevin so close, thighs bracketing his legs, hot breath on his lips.

‘Shit.’ Liam says, as Kevin wipes his hand off on Liam’s t-shirt. ‘Hey, gross.’

‘It had come on it anyway.’ Kevin reassures him.

Liam wants to go back to sleep right here, propped against the headboard, Kevin tucked against him. He wants to scoop Kevin up and put him in the car and take him back to his little timber-clad house in St Marys, Pennsylvania, on his anonymous street with the neighbors who thought he was just a busy nurse.

‘Are you hungry?’ Kevin asks him. ‘I’m starving.’ He gets up, managing to catch Liam in the stomach with one knee as he flails unsteadily.

‘Jesus, KJ.’ Liam rubs his stomach. They take turns in the little ensuite. ‘This seems like an unhealthy coping mechanism.’ Liam says as Kevin pulls his gloves back on.

Kevin quirks him a smile. ‘For you or me, man?’

‘I don’t know.’ Liam shrugs on a clean shirt. ‘Ok, I’m not gonna make it weird.’

Kevin bumps him, shoulder to shoulder. ‘Hey, I’m ok, yeah. I’m _fine_.’

Kevin’s not super convincing, so Liam just hums.

‘I _am_.’ Kevin insists. ‘I’m doing way better. I’m not drinking, like, at all. Which is, you know, a big fucking deal. And ok, things got a bit weird with the whole…’ he gestures vaguely.

‘Cult?’ Liam suggests, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, ok, ‘cult’.’ He makes quotations around the word with his fingers. ‘But I’m here now, with you, and I’m _fine_.’

Liam wonders if it is actually that simple for KJ, if all he needs is a large body of water to swim in and someone who thinks he’s hot shit to fuck, and he’s fine. Probably not. Probably they all need a lot of therapy, if they live long enough for it to matter.

‘Ok, babe.’ Liam concedes. ‘You gonna be able to do the interview?’

Kevin squares his shoulders. ‘Yeah. My mom and dad are gonna be so mad though.’

Liam frowns. God, _fuck_ Kevin’s mom and dad. ‘Have you heard from them recently?’

Kevin shrugs. ‘Mom called me to scream when I got moved out to Ohio. The cashier in Publix said something to her, she was embarrassed.’ He waves a hand. ‘She was right, I guess.’

‘She’s a bitch.’ Liam says.

‘ _Liam_!’ Kevin’s scandalized. ‘That’s my _mom_.’

‘She should have been worried about you, KJ.’ Liam replies emphatically.

‘Well, you know her.’ Kevin says, as though that doesn’t prove Liam’s point.

Liam certainly knows Marissa, still good friends with his own mom, although the women couldn’t be more different, she’s the archetypal discontented southern belle. From an old Georgia family, she’d married Kevin’s New Yorker father when he’d tipped up in Savannah with promises of making it big in real estate. Unfortunately for Marissa and everyone she comes across, Kevin Senior’s business ventures had never quite come to fruition in the way he’d boasted, and Marissa’s lifestyle was not quite that to which she was accustomed. KJ bore the brunt of her dissatisfaction, Liam knows.

‘Well, if she thought that was bad, the cashier in Publix is definitely gonna say something to her about this.’ Liam says, he enjoys the thought.

Kevin holds up his empty hands. ‘I don’t have my phone though. So she can’t yell at me this time.’

Liam huffs, his thoughts on Kevin’s mom probably don’t need to be discussed further. ‘Alright, let’s find some lunch.’

The sitting room goes absolutely and completely silent as Kevin enters, Liam close behind him, and it makes Kevin hesitate. Liam guides him ahead into the kitchen with a hand in the small of his back. Kevin’s looking around at the others, wide eyed, but Liam does what he always does in the face of unwanted scrutiny, keeps his head down and keeps moving.

‘Anyone want coffee?’ Kevin asks, a little desperately. ‘I’m just gonna like make a pot so, if anyone wants any they can just like –’

‘Sounds great, babe.’ Liam tells him.

‘Yes,’ Frenchie agrees, ‘coffee. Perfect.’ MM concurs, too loud.

Liam ignores them and meanders around making grilled cheese for himself and Kevin. The others can fend for themselves, he’s got no interest in playing house with the CIA like KJ had that morning. There’s a certain pleasure in the familiar motions of buttering bread, heating the skillet, laying down bread, cheese, bread, melting, flipping, pressing, slicing. Kevin’s chattering away, not really to anyone, just anxious about being in a room full of people who know what Homelander did to him. At least Butcher’s still holed up with Mallory, and it’s just Frenchie and MM, Hughie and Starlight, and Maeve and Elena, people not actively trying to wind Liam up. Liam wonders again, fruitlessly, if when the news comes out, will Kevin be able to handle everyone knowing about it. He’s always so concerned about what people think about him.

‘You want eggs or something, as well?’ Liam asks, knows what Kevin’s appetite is like.

Kevin looks at him, his mouth open, for a second before declining. Liam fights the urge to bundle him back to their room, back to their bed preferably, and hide him away from all these eyes. Christ, is _Liam_ going to be able to handle this?

Thankfully Maeve comes to the rescue. She’s a somewhat unlikely savior, but she puts some Attenborough Netflix documentary on the big TV in the sitting room, and everyone falls into relieved silence. Liam brings their plates over to one of the sofas and they eat, then he lets Kevin curl up into him after they’ve finished, even though there’s still other people in the room and Maeve’s giving them a look. He puts his arm around Kevin and enjoys the fact that he can, that he doesn’t have to sit a decorous distance away like he used to at the Tower, that he can feel Kevin’s solid weight against him. Kevin falls asleep against him almost straight away, and Liam watches the greens and blues of the nature documentary blankly.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

They don’t do any more planning for the rest of the day, personally, although a flurry of CIA activity continues in the background. Kevin goes back out to the lake when he wakes up from his nap. By that time Mallory’s emerged, and on his was out he asks her if _hey, maybe he could talk to her about the trout in the lake and their views on sport fishing, and even if you throw the fish back they still –_ and Mallory shoots Liam a look that for once seems a little uncertain. Perhaps she doesn’t want to eviscerate Kevin just at the moment. Liam shakes his head quickly, behind Kevin’s back, and Mallory tells Kevin maybe another time, and he accepts that cheerfully enough. Once he’s gone Mallory turns her cool gaze on Liam.

Liam shrugs, getting up. ‘Give him an inch and he’ll start the trout rebellion.’ Mallory just blinks, likely regretting the necessity of sharing her home with these people, and well, Liam would be just as happy to leave, if there was anywhere else they could safely go.

Maeve’s moping around in the empty kitchen. Liam needs to wash up the things he’d used for lunch, so he lets himself be cornered by the sink. Again.

‘I didn’t know.’ She tells him bluntly, no need to come at a thing sideways like Starlight had.

‘I’d assumed that.’ He replied, getting the hot water going.

‘I knew Homelander was… but I didn’t think…’ She can’t really say it, so Liam has to fill in the blanks himself. But that’s manageable, he knows Maeve had had a relationship with Homelander, and that she wouldn’t have done so if she’d known he was a rapist, although she must have known he was a fucking psychopath.

‘Me neither.’ He admits, watching the soap suds form in the sink, feeling the guilt.

‘I’m sorry.’ Maeve offers unexpectedly.

Liam frowns, because it isn’t like her. ‘What for?’

She sighs gustily. ‘Not keeping a better eye on what was happening at the Tower. I suppose I didn’t see the danger there. For Deep.’

That’s understandable, Liam supposes, because he knows Maeve had always seen Kevin as more as a threat than potential victim. And in fairness Kevin had a haphazard approach to women and he could be a handful when his ego was bruised, so in some ways she wasn’t wrong. But clearly it wasn’t that simple.

‘It wasn’t your responsibility.’ Liam tells her.

She gives him a long look. ‘It wasn’t yours either, Lamplighter.’

Liam scowls. ‘I’m not really Lamplighter anymore.’ He says, so he doesn’t have to answer her. ‘You can call me Liam.’

She frowns. ‘Liam? Why?’

Liam stops washing up, looks at her. ‘Because that’s my name.’ He says, unable to keep his surprise hidden. ‘Did you not know my name?’

She shrugs. ‘Huh. I always saw you as more of a Matt.’

‘Great.’ Liam says flatly. ‘That’s great, _Maggie_ , thanks.’

She’s not embarrassed, so there doesn’t seem to be any point in going on about it.

‘I’d forgotten what a grumpy little shit you are.’ She says cheerfully. ‘But still, it is nice to have another adult around again.’

‘Glad you think so.’

She leans against the counter beside him. Contemplating. She doesn’t bother to pretend to help clean up the kitchen. ‘Really, though, Deep’s done pretty well. Most of this was his plan, after all.’

‘He’s not as stupid as people think.’ Liam tells her.

‘He’s got a sort of…’ she purses her lips, thinking, ‘animal cunning.’

‘Watch it.’ Liam warns.

She’s unconcerned. ‘He’s sneaky. How long’s he been sitting on this thing with the video? Three years? Sucking up to Homelander the whole time. And now going straight to the media. That’s ballsy.’

‘He’s not a coward, either.’ Liam mutters, trying not to sound defensive.

She smirks at him, and Liam knows he’s being transparent. ‘You’re really serious about this thing with him then, huh?’

‘We gonna trade gossip now?’ He asks her.

‘Just asking. ‘Cause once this gets out, there’s no going back. I learnt that the hard way.’

‘I know.’ He scowls, contemplates not answering. ‘I’m serious.’ He allows.

She nods. ‘And Deep? Is he serious too? Because he is married, you know.’

Liam resists the urge to snap, to say _yeah, well, I saw him first_ , because Maeve had just called him an adult. ‘Can’t get much sense out of him about that, but it seems like it’s not much of a thing.’

‘Maybe not. I saw a big white dress and a lot of cake on TV though, and so did everyone else.’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘You think people won’t buy it?’ Maeve’s been in the public gaze long enough to develop an eye for PR, so Liam’s prepared to consider her opinion.

She snorts. ‘Anyone who sees the way he looks at you will buy it. It’s disgusting.’ 

That makes Liam feel a little pleased with himself, at least. ‘So you do think he’s serious.’

She makes a face. ‘As serious as The Deep ever gets, maybe. He always did follow you around like a puppy. But everyone else is gonna have to see it too. I hope you’re excited for the interviews.’ She walks away.

This time Liam does light a cigarette off the stove, and takes it out front to smoke it, so if Kevin comes back he won’t catch him. But Kevin doesn’t come in until dinner arrives and he appears, dripping, in time to eat, with his uncanny ability to always be in the same place as a pizza delivery. Liam had made sure they ordered a pizza with cheese and bell pepper and mushroom for Kevin, even though everyone else complained. He had also mentally added a grocery order to his to do list, because they couldn’t live on carbs and cheese forever. Kevin looks happy though, and Liam only has to diffuse one quarrel between him and Butcher as they eat in front of the TV.

‘Were you smoking?’ Kevin asks suspiciously, nose wrinkling, as he prepares to sprawl across Liam again.

‘No.’ Liam tells him, and they wrestle fractiously for half a minute until KJ manages to pull the cigarette pack out of Liam’s back pocket.

‘Get a room.’ Maeve heckles, but they don’t just yet, because it’s early enough still and there’s a game on.

‘I thought you quit.’ Kevin murmurs to him, lounging against his shoulder.

Liam had quit, eight years ago, when Kevin started nagging properly and he’d started to think maybe he had a future. ‘I started again.’ He mutters back, not wanting to say more.

‘Well, quit again, man.’ Kevin says against his skin.

Later Liam takes Kevin back to their room and fucks him gently. They hadn’t done it like that very often back in the day, honestly it had always seemed like a bit of a waste to get a guy like Kevin in bed and then have tender missionary sex. So Kevin makes a little surprised ‘O’ with his mouth when Liam lays him out on his back and opens him up on two fingers and then shifts his legs up and sinks into him. Kevin’s a vision when he’s getting fucked, and that makes up for the fact that Liam can’t quite get the leverage to go as hard as he’d like. He leans over Kevin, folding him up, enjoying his flexibility, kisses him, can’t stop. Maybe they should have done more of this. Kevin’s gasping against his lips and making a bit more noise than Liam would like in such a full house. It’s so good, Liam can’t quite believe it’s real. He’s been dreaming of it for so many years, almost celibate because why would he bother if it wasn’t KJ, always missing him and wanting him and hating himself. The gift of getting to nip at Kevin’s jaw and listen to him whine deep in his throat and watch as he comes is almost too much.

Afterwards Liam can’t stop himself staring at KJ, watching him catch his breath, his glowing skin and taut muscles and _faceif you can’t get it up again, then that’s just a tease_. Even though he could definitely get it up again, because Kevin’s looking like he does and Liam’s forty not _dead_ , Liam takes it as a challenge. He returns Kevin’s smile and sees his eyes widen, then he gets to work getting Kevin off again, with his fingers pressing in just right and a hand on Kevin’s chest to hold him down and finally his mouth on one of Kevin’s gills. Usually Kevin would offer a token protest at that, but he’s too far gone, with his head thrown back and his hand in Liam’s hair, pressing him in close. Kevin’s gills are all soft skin and blood-engorged tissue, and the biology is fascinating but right now all Liam cares about is that, although it embarrasses Kevin, you can get him off like this real easy if you know what you’re doing and you’re careful. Liam does know what he’s doing, and he’s always careful when it comes to Kevin, so Kevin comes clenching around his fingers and up against his restraining hand.

‘Fuck,’ Kevin pants as he settles down, ‘shit, how do you always…’ he has to break off to inhale. ‘Fuck.’

Liam smooths his hand over Kevin’s stomach again and declines Kevin’s offer of a handjob, because maybe three times in one day would be pushing it a bit. He cleans them up instead, and lets KJ go to sleep draped across his chest even though it’s not particularly comfortable. He’s not anticipating much sleep for himself anyway, he’s still too keyed up, that feral fury still just beneath his skin, in spite of the amazing sex. He only dozes fitfully, and dreams of Homelander’s hands around Kevin’s throat, Homelander’s cock in Kevin’s mouth, but at least when he wakes each time Kevin’s in his arms, safe and warm and sleeping soundly.

It takes a while to get everything sorted, from the CIA’s perspective. They have to find a news network that will air the Homelander story in just the way they want. And they have to edit the footage and track down ‘Macey’ and find a place to do the interview, and it all has to be done so quietly that Homelander and Vought don’t catch wind. It’s a tense wait and by day two Maeve’s so stir crazy she insists Kevin lead an exercise class out on the lawn. She and Elena are joined by Starlight and Kimiko, and Liam and Frenchie stand out on the terrace smoking and watching.

Liam looks out at KJ leading a routine that’s some sort of fusion of yoga and Pilates and is reminded, vividly, of a decade earlier. Liam hadn’t given Kevin much thought, honestly, since he’d left home for college on the east coast, and by the time he’d become part of the Seven all of his childhood acquaintances were a distant memory. Liam’s mom was still friends with Kevin’s mom though, and so Liam had to occasionally hear about how _worried_ Marissa was about what Kevin might get up to now he’d moved away from home. So he’d taken the opportunity head hunting a new member of the Seven provided to go and investigate, mostly to shut his mom up, and it turned out that what Kevin was getting up to was teaching yoga to sorority girls on a beach in Florida.

When he’d tracked Kevin down online and rocked up at the beach in question, he’d known he was in trouble right away, and had almost just told Kevin to ring his mom and turned right around to track down a supe in Arkansas who he’d heard could make a tornado. But really he couldn’t not stay and watch. Kevin hadn’t looked like the gangly kid he’d left behind him in Georgia. He was twenty-five and all grown up, all muscle and tanned skin under his tight shorts and tank top. The girls in his class were giggling and batting their eyelashes, and who could blame them. When Kevin had finished his class he’d noticed Liam skulking in the background, and turned his brilliant smile on him and jogged over and, well, that was it. Liam had told him to pack a bag and come back to New York with him.

Now, watching Kevin instructing the women to _inhale, and exhale, and keep holding it, you’re doing so well_ and saying ‘pelvic floor’ so many times Maeve threatens to hit him, Liam wonders if plucking Kevin off that beach had been a terrible mistake. Kevin had been happy, and sun kissed, and he’d been able to swim with dolphins every day, and ok, his roommates had definitely been drug dealers and he’d smoked more weed than was maybe healthy, but he was safe. He hadn’t been safe since.

‘That is truly something to see, _non_?’ Frenchie remarks to him, and Liam wonders if he’s looking at Kevin or the girls. Both, maybe.

Kevin’s doing an athletic series of sun salutations, _chaturanga, inhale, down dog, exhale, up dog, warrior one, chaturanga_. Liam hums his agreement. ‘It really is.’

Liam maybe doesn’t deal with the waiting as patiently as he might hope, because on day three Butcher calls Kevin a ‘cocksucker’ during one of their petty squabbles and Liam lifts him up by the lapels and slams him down on the kitchen counter. It says something that no one steps in to stop him, not Maeve, who treats it all like a spectator sport, or even Kimiko or Starlight. Not even MM tries to intervene, and after a tense second it’s Kevin who puts his arms around Liam from behind and wrestles him away. Liam lets himself be dragged back because he doesn’t really wanna smash Butcher’s face in, no matter how tempting it is right now. It leads to some great sex, anyway, back in their room, with Kevin telling him that _that was fucking hot_ and Liam bending him over the side of the bed.

On day four things seem to be gaining momentum, and Mallory brings in a CIA PR specialist to school Kevin and Starlight ahead of the interview. She’s an intimidating woman who would have been at home in Vought’s public relations department, except that she carries a gun. Liam sits in on the meeting because he wants to make sure KJ understands everything that’s happening. Diane at least is prepped and doesn’t seem shocked by anything. She gives her charges strict instructions about how they’re to present themselves in interview, not to wear their suits, which makes Kevin grimace, to articulate a clean break from Vought, to be as honest as possible, so it all comes across as sincere.

‘Are we gonna say we wanna kill Homelander?’ Kevin asks.

‘Of course not, KJ, don’t be an idiot.’ Liam says.

‘Oh,’ Diane says, turning to Starlight, ‘can you call him that?’

Starlight scowls. ‘What, an idiot? Sure. Definitely.’

Diane ignores that. ‘I like it, it’s cute, a little intimate, like you really know each other.’ She looks at Kevin. ‘If you’re happy with her calling you that?’

Kevin opens his mouth, frowns. ‘An idiot?’ He looks a little hurt.

Starlight bursts out laughing. PR lady frowns. ‘IQ of 78.’ Starlight tells her, in a way that makes Liam think she’s cherishing the information.

‘No.’ Liam says patiently. ‘She’s asking if Starlight can call you ‘KJ’.’

‘Oh.’ Kevin brightens. ‘Oh yeah, sure, Starlight can call me anything she likes.’

‘Don’t tempt me.’ Starlight mutters.


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning the news is showing the teaser footage that the CIA put out ahead of their interview that evening. They’re using footage from the hard drives that Liam hasn’t seen yet. It must have been one of the earliest videos Maeve had brought. PR lady Diane says they’re lucky to have it. Liam’s not so sure. He hadn’t really wanted to spend the day watching Homelander march into his old room in Vought Tower and rip KJ off the bed, slam him into the wall. But it does set a good scene. Luckily he and Kevin hadn’t been having kinky sex when Homelander had stormed in, and actually the video looks very wholesome. It plays on the TV in the sitting room while he’s having coffee, his third already, too tense for breakfast, and he watches himself sitting on his old bed, the one that had mysteriously caught fire after his breakup with Kevin. He’s reading _The Hobbit_ , aloud, to Kevin, because Kevin’s not good at reading but he loves being read to. Kevin’s on the bed too, in his suit pants and Liam’s t-shirt, doodling cartoon dwarves on Liam’s briefing notes. It had been peaceful, Liam remembers, a quiet Sunday, and he’d been so complacent. He hadn’t known it was the beginning of the end, that less than a month later he’d be invited to a dark parking lot to meet Mallory.

Then, as Liam watches, their peaceful morning’s disrupted by Homelander. He strides in and grabs KJ off the bed by his hair, without a word, throws him up against a wall. And Kevin looks a lot younger than he does now, with his floppy hair and no beard, and he’s terrified. Liam’s on his feet, yelling at Homelander, not very impressive in just his boxers, but at least he looks good, back when he hit the gym every day. 

Homelander smiles at him, more a bearing of teeth. ‘Well isn’t this cozy.’

‘What the hell?’ Liam hisses at him, lighter already in his hands.

‘I heard a nasty rumor,’ Homelander replies, holding Kevin casually against the wall by his t-shirt, ‘that the two of you were fucking. And I said to myself _no way, there’s no way Lamplighter’s a queer. Maybe this little shrimp_ ,’ he raps Kevin hard on the chest, making him yelp, ‘ _but not Lamplighter_.’ He sneers at Liam. ‘But look what I found.’

Liam remembers thinking, wildly, that maybe he could still deny it, say that they were friends, best friends, and guys sometimes hung out, right, on their bed, in their underwear, just as friends. But really they’d already given themselves away.

From the tv Liam snaps, ‘What’s it to you?’

Homelander snorts. ‘Do you have any idea how bad this would look if it got out? For the team? And if it makes the team look bad, it makes me look bad.’

‘It’s no one’s business.’ Liam tells him.

‘You’re going to stop this disgusting perversion.’ Homelander says dangerously. ‘And you better make sure no one else ever finds out about it.’

The news channel has to bleep out Liam’s response.

Homelander’s eyes flash and his face contorts. He lets go of Kevin’s shirt and grabs at his abdomen, over his t-shirt, and in a sickening movement pushes his fingers _in_ where there shouldn’t be an orifice, and even though Liam’s intimately familiar with Kevin’s anatomy, it still makes him feel dizzy for a moment. Then Homelander hoists Kevin _up_. ‘It would be so easy,’ he snarls, as Kevin wriggles and gasps, ‘to rip you apart right now. I could rip you into so many tiny pieces, no one would even know what species you are.’ He looks back at Liam. ‘Wouldn’t that be something? He could be fish bait. Or maybe he’s too rotten.’

Homelander shifts his grip and Kevin screams a little.

‘Put him down!’ Liam orders, putting a hand out, holding up his lighter in warning, little tremors of rage going through it.

Homelander bares his teeth again. ‘I don’t think I will.’

Liam’s eyes flash then, not the red of Homelander’s or Starlight’s white, but a cold, flat gold. ‘I will burn your f-ing face off, Homelander. Put him down.’

There’s a moment where the tension stretches between them. Then Homelander shrugs, says _fine_ lightly, like it’s nothing. And drops Kevin on the floor.

Kevin pants shallowly, hurt little noises in the silence.

‘Don’t forget what I said, Lamplighter.’ Homelander warns.

‘Get out.’ Liam orders, and Homelander goes.

Kevin sobs quietly, from the floor, and looks down at his stomach, where his t-shirt’s already turning red. He presses a hand to his stomach, and stares blankly when it comes back bloody.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Liam says, rushing over to him, dropping to the floor at his side.

‘How many times have you watched that now?’ Elena asks him quietly, stepping into the sitting room.

‘Too many.’ Maeve says decisively, turning off the tv just as the channel’s returning to the news reader, announcing the _shocking news concerning violence in the heart of Vought International’s elite team of superheroes The Seven_.

‘Should leave it on,’ Butcher mutters from where he’s lurking at the screen doors, ‘maybe he’ll get pissed off enough to be useful.’

Liam shows Butcher his teeth. ‘What would you know about it.’

Butcher gives him a nasty smile. ‘The boys said you were about as much use as a nine-year-old schoolgirl at Sage Grove. If you’re gonna be that fucking useless today, you can say behind with Elena and the kid.’

Elena had agreed with no complaint that she would stay in the CIA safehouse with Mallory and the tech agents when the others went off to deal with Homelander and Stormfront, which made sense, seeing as she was a management consultant, not a combat specialist. And there seemed to be a little something between her and Maeve that wasn’t quite sweet. They were sticking together in a house full of strangers, sleeping in the same room too, but there was some sort of coolness they weren’t sharing with the others. She didn’t have Hughie’s burning desire to stay with her woman, anyway.

Hughie, on the other hand, had been adamant that he wanted to stick with Starlight, stay near her for the interview and then go with her to New York, but unfortunately he was still intermittently bleeding out of the long gash in his stomach. There had been a big back and forth between him and Butcher and Starlight, disrupting Kevin and Starlight’s early breakfast before they left for Albany. Hughie’s clearly more stubborn than he looks, ‘cause he hadn’t really been swayed by Starlight’s pleas that his injury would make him vulnerable. It had only been resolved when Kevin had sauntered up and popped him, gently, in the stomach with his fingers, making the kid double over, allowing Kevin to tell him _see, you’re hurt already, man, Stormfront will eat you up_ , and he’d finally, grudgingly, agreed. Neither Butcher nor Starlight had been happy about that, then, but they’d got what they wanted, and Liam had got between them and Kevin before either of them could retaliate.

Butcher was right though, Liam hadn’t been a huge amount of use at Sage Grove. It hadn’t been that he’d wanted to die particularly, in the moment, after all there was nothing like having acid spat in your face to focus the mind on survival, but passivity had become a bad habit.

‘I was trying to avoid setting more patients on fire, then.’ Liam says instead, and to some extent it’s true. ‘That won’t be a problem this time.’

Butcher’s still across the room, glaring a challenge. ‘And fire’s gonna be helpful, is it? We’re trying to murder a supe, not have a fucking barbeque.’

Liam shrugs, lets Butcher get himself worked up. ‘My fire gets pretty hot.’

‘How hot?’ Butcher growls.

Liam makes a non-committal face. ‘Been a long time since I really let it go. Hot enough to bring Vought sniffing around when I was a kid. Hot enough to get me a full ride through college and a job with them at the end too.’

Butcher stares at him for a moment more. ‘So you don’t know.’ He decides. Which is correct, because Liam’s spent most of his life trying hard not to set catastrophically hot fires. ‘Fucking amazing.’ Then Butcher thinks about it some more. ‘You saying that you started a fire when you were a kid and Vought turned up?’

‘Yep.’

Butcher wets his lips. ‘Must have been pretty hot then. Caught their attention. Number of babies they’re pumping Compound V into, they’re not coming ‘round for just any kid.’

Liam just shrugs again. ‘Burnt my house down, anyway.’ Not that he remembers too well, he’d only been four or five.

Butcher nods, his gaze speculative now. ‘Alright. Then when we go after Homelander, you can come with.’

Liam finishes his coffee to smother his annoyance at Butcher’s implication that he ever hadn’t been going to fight Homelander. Like he would have left Kevin alone with only Butcher to save him. He remembers what Kevin had said early that morning, in their room, while he packed up his stuff to leave. He’d said, _come get me when Homelander shows up. Don’t forget, ok_. And Liam had frowned at the ridiculousness of that, because how could he forget, and he’d told Kevin _of course I won’t forget_ , and Kevin had looked up from his packing and smiled at him and Liam had had to say it, then, just so Kevin knew, so he’d never think Liam would forget. So he’d said _I love you_ , and Kevin had smiled again, bigger, easy and obvious, and said _I know_ , then he’d zipped up his duffle and pecked Liam on the lips and said _don’t forget_ and walked out of the room, out of the front door, right out to be bait for Homelander.

‘I worry that we’re spreading ourselves a bit thin,’ Maeve says to Liam, ‘sending me, Starlight and Kimiko to Vought Tower and leaving you to take on Homelander by yourself.’

‘He’s not gonna be by his fucking self!’ Butcher exclaims, cut deep. ‘Me and MM are gonna be there.’

Maeve gives him a dismissive look. ‘And what exactly are you gonna do to Homelander? Curse at him?’

Butcher bristles. ‘Look, love, I know you think you supertwats are all that, but I’ve got a few tricks up my fucking sleeve too, yeah?’ He gives Liam a sideways look, and Liam knows that those tricks are being kept quiet from him, maybe from Maeve too, in case they need to be used on them as well as Homelander.

Maeve’s dubious. ‘Whatever.’ She turns back to Liam. ‘Splitting up seems like a risk, we don’t even know that Stormfront will stay in New York and not come up here with Homelander.’

‘It’s the best shot we have. If we catch them off guard with this today, I bet they’ll split up. Homelander will wanna get to Kevin, and Stormfront will wanna confront Starlight before she does too much damage to Vought. Plus, Homelander’s image is gonna be toxic after this, she’s not gonna wanna be seen with him.’

‘I’d feel better if we dealt with them as a team.’ Maeve grumbles.

‘But then we’d probably have to deal with the two of them together too, and that’s not something I think we want.’

‘True.’ Maeve swallows. ‘I’ve seen what Stormfront can do, a bit anyway. I hope we have the firepower to take her on.’

Liam thinks they’ll manage. Kimiko can’t die apparently, which has to help, and Maeve’s stronger than Stormfront, she’s stronger than everyone. And then there’s Starlight. He turns to Maeve conspiratorially, and lowers his voice so Butcher, still across the room, can’t hear, and tells her his suspicions about Starlight’s and Stormfront’s powers.

Maeve listens, nodding. ‘Interesting.’ She says.

‘Think it’ll work?’ Liam asks.

She shrugs a shoulder. ‘Maybe. You were always better at understanding the mechanics of this than me. Might work, might get her killed.’

‘I’m not saying get her shocked deliberately, I’m just saying that if she does, it might not go the way Stormfront expects.’

Maeve huffs. ‘Well, I think we’re all gonna get shocked plenty, so no problem there.’

‘What’re you two cunts plotting over there?’ Butcher demands.

‘Mind your own business.’ Maeve tells him, unimpressed.

Liam’s done listening to Butcher, so he takes his mug through to the kitchen and starts in on cleaning up again, a never-ending task in house of so many people. The only good thing about KJ having left already is that he’s got his phone back, and his Spotify back, so he can quietly listen to Imagine Dragons circa 2012 while he cleans, _like an adult_. Maeve follows and watches, amused, as he puts plates in the dishwasher and rinses the coffee pot.

As he starts wiping down the counters Maeve finally breaks. ‘You know, Mallory definitely gets a housekeeper in for this place. I can’t really see her mopping the floors. And in the meantime there are plenty of junior whatever agents around.’

Liam shrugs. ‘I may be forty, but my mom would still beat me with a broom if she found out I let someone else clean up after me.’ He freezes, looking at Maeve. ‘Oh shit.’ He says slowly. ‘My mom.’

‘What…’. Maeve starts to say, then she realizes. ‘Shit.’

Liam turns off his music quickly and pulls up his mom’s number, a new kind of tension churning in his stomach now. As the phone rings, he hopes guiltily that she won’t answer.

‘Liam?’ His mom’s voice comes through, clear and nostalgic. ‘What is it, honey?’ She sounds surprised, and worried, and well, Liam hasn’t called since Christmas and hadn’t planned on calling until Thanksgiving, so she would be surprised.

‘Hi, Mom.’ He says tightly. ‘Have you watched the news yet today?’

‘No,’ she’s confused now, ‘you know I don’t watch tv in the morning, not until after the chores are done.’

Liam can see it in his memory, the open kitchen of his parents’ farmhouse, warm and bright from the Georgia sun. His mom had probably been doing the same thing that he had been before he called, cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast.

‘Okay,’ he says, voice quaking a little now, ‘good. Look Mom, something’s happening, I can’t say what. Don’t answer the phone to anyone that’s not me, and tell Dad to shoot anyone who comes on the property uninvited.’ That’s maybe a little overkill, seeing as it’ll be more likely journalists than angry supes, but no point taking risks. He wants to say more, but he can’t ask her not to watch tv today, not when he’s just called her with this out of the blue.

‘What?’ His mom asks, shocked. ‘Liam, honey, what’s going on?’

‘I can’t say.’ He says again, even though he could say, really, at least what’s on tv as it’s public knowledge now, but then again he can’t make himself say it all to her. ‘I have to go.’

‘Liam no, wait, you’re worrying me. What’s all this about?’ His mom’s getting more agitated now, and Liam knows there is something he should tell her, now, at last, before she sees it on tv or reads it online.

‘I’m gay.’ He blurts, then he hangs up quickly, before she can say anything.

When he looks up Maeve’s regarding him coolly, because of course she hasn’t turned away to give him some privacy to talk to his mom. ‘Smooth.’ She says.


	12. Chapter 12

There’s a little holiday retreat in the Upper Delaware Valley, halfway back to New York from Mallory’s house, with secluded holiday cabins scattered through the forest. The CIA have cleared it out completely, all eighteen cabins, and the interview they’ve set up with their tame news station is gonna happen in one of them. All the rest of them are crammed into another cabin, exactly a minute and twenty-five seconds drive from the one set up for the interview. The one where the interview will be is set up with hidden cameras covering every angle and complete audio coverage, and Liam gets to watch Kevin and Starlight bumble around getting ready on the monitors. They’ve been brought in from Albany, ostentatiously coming in from the east while the dark CIA SUVs had come south from Mallory’s. Not exactly the height of spycraft, but enough to prevent immediate suspicion. It’s meant a long day. They were in Albany by the time the news channels started rolling the clip with Homelander at 7am, and the interview will air live at 10pm. It’s meant Liam couldn’t see KJ at all, and he couldn’t help him prep for the interview, which is a concern because in practice yesterday with the PR lady, Kevin had answered the question _how do you feel about the public seeing this video_ with _I want everyone to know, I usually give way better head than that_ and Liam hadn’t been sure if he was just bored with the practice questions or he actually wanted to say that on TV. It had wound everyone else up, anyway, frayed as tempers already were.

They’ve put Kevin and Starlight in civilian clothes, not their costumes. Starlight looks nice and normal and very Midwestern in bootcut jeans and a blouse. That’s part of the plan of course, for her to look homey and trustworthy. They’ve put Kevin in a thin t-shirt and jeans as well and he’s uncomfortable, Liam can see it even on the small computer screens. They didn’t want him wearing his gloves so his webbing’s on display. He looks vulnerable, a bit naked in comparison to his usual get-up, which is what they’d wanted, Mallory and Diane. He’s rubbing his thumb anxiously over the fingers of his other hand as he and Starlight get settled on stools by the kitchen counter. The open-plan kitchen-diner is cluttered with lighting and sound equipment and there are people crowded in to deal with every technical aspect of the broadcast.

Liam pulls out his phone to stop himself staring fixedly at the screens. Social media’s been wild since the news broke that Lamplighter and The Deep had been fucking. #Lamplighter is trending for the first time all year, as is #Deeplighter, which could be Liam’s least favorite thing about the whole day. People have dug out every photo where he and Kevin are in the same shot, and are analyzing them for any potential sexual tension. Now that Liam’s face has been broadcast on every news station in the country, it hasn’t taken long for someone from home to recognize him and put his name online. God knows if his parents will ever get any peace after this. He can’t wait for one of the guys he hooked up with in college to do a tell-all interview.

He’s so busy brooding he almost misses the start of the interview. It’s unsettling to see it from every angle at once. It’s live on the big TV on the wall of their swanky cabin, and there’s at least eight different feeds from surveillance cameras showing it. As 10pm rolls around the news intro flashes on the TV and Liam’s stomach lurches unpleasantly. He worries for a moment that he really is gonna miss the start of the interview, but he manages to quell his nausea. The studio anchor introduces the show and the special interview that’s to follow in a concerningly perky voice. Liam wonders what she’s so fucking pleased about. But he supposes her news show’s about to receive its maximum viewing figures. Then she hands over to the correspondent doing the interview from an ‘undisclosed location’.

He’s a suave middle-aged man who wouldn’t have been Liam’s pick for this. Liam would have preferred an interviewer who was likely to be in a bit more awe of Starlight and The Deep, younger maybe, grateful for the big break. This guy has no reason to cut Kevin any slack. But the CIA did pick this guy, so maybe he won’t tear into them like Liam knows every decent journalist in the country’s been wanting to do to a supe since the Seven got off the ground. Liam hopes not, Kevin’s easily intimidated by a stern-looking older man in a nice suit.

Kevin looks intimidated, perched next to Starlight on stools, opposite their interviewer. Liam wishes they’d put him in a button-down or something, he looks practically naked next to Starlight in her smart blouse, just thin cotton stretched across his muscular shoulders and his cropped hair. Starlight’s sitting forward, smiling blandly at the interviewer as he introduces them. KJs leaning back, hands clasped, eyes wide. They’d wanted him like this, to sell the story, so Kevin looks like a poor little victim and people will feel sorry for him. But Liam hates it, because Kevin’s not weak, he can handle himself, and having half the country see him at his most self-conscious puts Liam’s hackles up.

‘And now,’ the reporter says, ‘we’re going to show you some of the disturbing footage that’s been passed to us, exclusively, by Starlight and The Deep. But first, I have to ask, Starlight, how did this unlikely partnership come about?’

Starlight smiles beatifically. ‘Please, call me Annie. Well, Andy, as you know KJ and I have some history, and the last few months it’s really been bothering me, so I decided to go and see him in Ohio. I don’t know if I wanted it to be some sort of closure, I don’t know what I was looking for really. But what KJ shared with me made me realize there was a whole lot more going on than just what happened between me and him…’ Starlight continues to sincerely tell the bullshit story the CIA had come up with. She’s a pretty good liar for a respectable Iowa girl. Liam’s going to remember that.

‘That’s quite a story.’ Andy the interviewer says. Liam wonders if he believes it. It doesn’t matter, there’re a few people dotted around Sandusky who will say they saw Starlight there recently, there can even be gas receipts and security footage if necessary. ‘Now let’s have a look at that shocking video footage, and a warning to our viewers that you may find this extremely upsetting.’

They show a heavily edited version of the footage Liam has already seen, with a few extra bits of Homelander’s brutality thrown in. Liam doesn’t like watching Homelander casually grab Kevin by the throat in the conference room on some unspecified day, doesn’t like the way Kevin goes still and his eyes slide away anxiously. He hates seeing Kevin getting the shit beaten out of him again. But at least the sexual assault is more alluded to than explicitly shown. What’s more, at least four minutes of the ten-minute interview slot is gone now, and that limits the amount Kevin can fuck up the questions that follow.

‘As I said,’ Andy says seriously as the feed returns to the studio, ‘extremely disturbing. Now KJ, is it alright if I call you KJ?’ He asks solicitously. Kevin says _oh, sure, yeah, if you want_ obligingly. ‘I’m so sorry that this happened to you, but if you don’t mind, I just have a few questions.’

It’s not a smooth and polished performance on Kevin’s part, Vought PR would have been disappointed. He wobbles on a couple of questions about how he feels about what happened, _glad Homelander didn’t kill me_ is maybe a bit too honest, and when he gets asked a truly stupid question about Homelander’s possible motives he gestures expansively with his hands in a way that lets the cameras get a good shot of the pale skin stretched between his fingers and Liam knows that’ll be all over the internet in an hour. When Andy asks Kevin whether he’d assaulted Starlight because of what Homelander had done to him, Starlight steps in, as planned.

‘This isn’t about making excuses for what KJ did.’ She says, and he nods earnestly. ‘It’s about a problem that is endemic within Vought and which Vought has done nothing about. I think Vought had plenty of opportunity to solve this problem, and if they had, a lot of people wouldn’t have had to suffer, including me. That’s why I’m travelling to New York tonight to meet with Vought’s executive committee first thing in the morning. I’m calling for a complete overhaul of Vought’s safeguarding procedures, and I want people to join me by speaking out in any way they can.’

‘I’m sure we’ll all be asking some serious questions about Vought’s procedures after this, particularly coming so soon after the revelations about Compound V.’ The reporter replies smoothly. He’s probably dying to ask Kevin and Starlight what they know about Compound V. ‘But unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for tonight. Annie, good luck in New York. KJ, I think we’re going to be lucky enough to have you on the program tomorrow, when we’ll be joined by Lamplighter.’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin musters a smile for the first time, ‘Liam’s gonna join me here tomorrow.’ A little clunky, maybe, but it tells Homelander everything they wanted him to know.

Andy thanks them and hands back over to the studio anchor.

On the TV screen, the program continues with analysis and discussion from ‘experts’. Liam tunes them out and watches the monitors showing the inside of the cabin. The TV crew are packing up and Starlight’s standing with the interviewer, chatting charmingly. Kevin’s still on his stool, hunched and looking sorry for himself, staring at his hands. Liam wants to go over and tell him to get his shit together.

It takes half an hour for the TV crew to filter out, and in that time Kevin does manage to pull himself together a bit, make some coffee, put his gloves on. He and Starlight huddle around an iPad to check the social media reaction to the interview.

‘You did good.’ Starlight tells him, awkward.

‘You think?’ He asks hopefully.

‘Sure,’ she says, warming to it a little, ‘look, there’s a Change.org petition to get Homelander fired. It’s already got 13,000 signatures.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Kevin squares his shoulders, ‘that is pretty good.’ He frowns uncertainly. ‘Are they… what are they saying about… about my, you know, hands?’

‘Nothing, I’m sure.’ Starlight says quickly. ‘I mean, I’m sure after everything else that they saw tonight, I don’t think people would care about that.’ She moves the tablet away as Kevin reaches for it. ‘Maybe better not to look, anyway.’

‘Right.’ Kevin says, dejected again.

‘Look,’ Starlight says, ‘I should get going. Homelander could be here any moment, and if I get caught up with that, we won’t get Stormfront.’

‘No, totally,’ Kevin agrees, folding his arms around himself, ‘you should go. Good, er, good luck, and everything.’

‘You too.’ She says uncomfortably. She puts out a hand, touches his shoulder briefly, withdraws it quickly, her face drawn. She thinks Kevin’s going to die, Liam realizes.

KJ’s by himself, then, like they’d made sure Homelander knew he’d be. It’s unlikely to be a long wait, it’s not like Homelander won’t have seen the news. It just depends how long it takes him to work out where Kevin’s little cabin in the wilderness is, and Mallory had made sure that information would be easily available. Kevin potters around, puts some music on so Homelander won’t hear the faint hum of the surveillance technology, eats some of the leftover take out they’d had for lunch, though Liam has no idea how he can eat, changes from his jeans to his suit pants with no care for the cameras watching him, does some yoga on the rug in front of the fireplace. And Liam’s not going to let him die, he’s gonna spend the rest of his life watching Kevin’s ass as he does yoga in tight pants and no one, not Homelander or Stormfront or Butcher or Mallory, is gonna stop him.

The microphones pick up a gust of wind, and an alarm beeps quietly. _Homelander_ an agent says urgently _flying over and scanning the subject building_.

‘Let’s go.’ Liam says, already moving towards the door.

‘Wait.’ Mallory holds up her hand. ‘We have to wait until he goes inside the building or he’ll detect us. You know that.’

Liam freezes, tense. He does know it, but there’s a minute and a half between him and Kevin and that’s long enough for Homelander to kill him.

On the screens, Kevin’s noticed Homelander’s impending arrival too. He’s standing still in the hallway of the house, looking at the roof, mouth open as he listens. There’s a thud audible through the speakers as Homelander lands on the front step. Then the door explodes.

‘Now.’ Liam says, brooking no argument, and Butcher and MM aren’t arguing, they’re following him out of the door and into the car that’s been left primed and ready.

Hughie presses the button to start streaming the video feed online as soon as Homelander hits the ground. It starts being shared by multiple social media users outlets in a about three seconds. 

As he watches, The Deep backs away from the door. Homelander strides through, anger clear on his face, eyes flashing.

‘Hey,’ The Deep says, ‘hey man. What’re, what’re you doing here? Not that I’m not pleased to see you, and everything, ahhhh…’ he breaks off as he’s forced back against the wall, Homeander’s forearm across his throat.

‘You,’ Homelander snarls, ‘made me look bad in front of someone I care about very much.’

‘Hey man,’ Deep wheezes, ‘I didn’t know, didn’t know you were seeing anyone. Congrats.’

Homelander punches him in the stomach with the hand not holding him down.

‘I’m going to kill you.’ Homelander says conversationally. ‘I’m going to rip you apart into tiny pieces. Thanks for reminding me of that, by the way. I do love keeping my promises.’

The Deep kicks Homelander in the shin, and while it’s not enough to hurt him, he does step back reflexively.

‘Fuck you.’ The Deep says.

The ensuing fight is edited, montaged, slowed down, speeded up and set to every conceivable music on social media almost before it’s finished. But the version that haunts Hughie is the original, because the music that it’s set to by The Deep’s shuffled playlist is the same one that was playing in Mallory’s kitchen last night when he made vegetarian tacos for all of them and danced around with Kimiko.

_I don’t wanna_ the singer laments as The Deep is smashed through the coffee table in the sitting area _give up on you. I don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna have to_. Homelander grabs him by the t-shirt and it rips, he gets his other hand into The Deep’s gill and pulls, The Deep screaming as something inside him tears. He falls to the floor again, scrambles away, gets dragged up by Homelander and lands a decent punch in his face. Homelander shakes him, punches him repeatedly in the face and body. The Deep slumps in his grasp.

There’s a noise from outside, and Homelander turns. _Can’t believe I’m so nervous, face to face_. It’s Butcher and MM and Lamplight, bursting out of their car and through the broken door. Homelander snarls and throws The Deep aside, straight through the partition wall and into the next room. Butcher fires immediately, hitting Homelander with some of Frenchie’s exploding bullets. They don’t seem to do much, even though Hughie knows how much explosive they’d been loaded with. All they do is enrage Homelander, and his eyes glow brighter.

But Lamplighter is faster than Homelander. He’s already got his lighter lit, and he sends a stream of flame square into Homelander’s face before he can start to laser anyone. The flame’s orange and red to start with, and Homelander takes a step forward. Lamplighter steps forwards too, Butcher and MM falling back away from the heat, and the flame gets paler, hotter. Lamplight steps forwards again, and the flames are blue, and Homelander isn’t moving anymore, just standing. Lamplighter lowers his arms, his eyes have changed color, the flames are almost clear, but rolling off him now, not coming from the lighter, and Homelander’s face is melting. The rest of him is on fire now, his uniform and cape catching quickly. Lamplighter’s trembling, all the air between himself and Homelander shimmering with invisible flames. The roof above Homelander vaporizes, but the room around him is untouched, the carpet a foot from him not even scorched, although below him it’s a flaming crater.

On the monitors around Hughie, two of the cameras closest to Homelander have gone out in a blaze of white, but the rest are untouched, as are most of the microphones, and the song ends _don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna give up yet_.

In the momentary silence, Lamplighter crumples to the floor and all the flames go out with him. A second later, Homelander’s smoldering body falls.

Butcher steps over Lamplighter’s unconscious form and goes to inspect Homelander’s body. He approaches cautiously, but there’s no sign of life from Homelander. He kicks at the corpse.

‘Not even hot.’ He says. ‘Fucking hell.’ He leans down and takes a hold of the skull, which had taken the worst fire damage, fingers in empty eye sockers. With a sharp jerk the skull separates from the spine and comes away in Butcher’s hand. He holds it up for the cameras. ‘Fucking diabolical.’ He says in awe.

MM lowers his gun, bypasses Lamplighter and goes to through the hole Deep had made in the wall. ‘This motherfucker is seriously fucked up.’ He calls, standing over The Deep on the floor. ‘But he’s alive.’

Beside Hughie, Mallory opens her cell phone. ‘Professor Sherwin? It’s Grace Mallory. I apologize for the late call. You’ve seen the news this evening? Then you’ll understand my reason for calling. Yes. We’ll need you in New York as soon as possible. That’s right. We’ll send a plane. Did you find a veterinary surgeon, as we discussed? We’ll need them too. Be at the airport in 45 minutes.’ She walks away, and Hughie misses the rest of the conversation.

On the screen, Lamplighter’s pushing himself onto his hands and knees. The next song on The Deep’s playlist is playing, another female pop singer Hughie has never heard. . Lamplighter vomits neatly onto the floor between his hands, then scrambles up. He stumbles towards the next room, falls and pushes himself up again, makes it through the hole in the wall. He pushes MM aside and drops down beside The Deep, touches his face, checks his pulse. The Deep is breathing shallowly, blood pooling under him, and when Lamplighter pulls off what’s left of his t-shirt his abdomen is a mess of open flesh. _L.O.V.E. me, let me be, be your company_. Lamplighter lets out a shuddering breath, half sob, and above them Hughie hears the steady _whap whap_ of the medevac helicopter.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

There’s only room for Kevin and the medics in the helicopter, but Liam can at least get him safely on the stretcher and out onto the road where the helicopter’s landed. He throws up again once they’re gone, leaning against the side of the building. He’s shaking. He can’t catch his breath. MM has to grab his hoodie and push him at the waiting car. He hopes they’re going to the hospital, so he can be with KJ, but he can’t seem to ask.

He can’t get himself under control. There are little licks of flame flaring off his hands, even though his lighter is back in his pocket, and MM keeps having to slap them out when they ignite the back of the seat in front of Liam. The CIA agent driving them glances back continuously in concern.

‘Get your foot down, yeah mate?’ Butcher instructs their driver from the front passenger seat.

It’s a long few hours driving down dark roads, then the big freeway to the bright lights of New York suburbs. Liam zones out, really, barely notices the increasing amount of traffic as they get into the city, just stares at the flicker of flames dancing off his hands, tries to keep breathing.

When they stop finally it’s in a car park. They have gone to a hospital, although Liam doesn’t know which one. It seems to be in the center of New York, and he can’t work out why they’d have brought Kevin here, surely there was somewhere closer, or the CIA had their own facilities, they didn’t use emergency rooms in the middle of the city. MM and Butcher get out of the car, so Liam does too. They disappear through the hospital’s main entrance, but Liam can’t go in. He’s still on fire.

He doesn’t know how long he stands in the car park. It’s drizzling, rain soaking through his hoodie, and he’s vaguely aware that people are staring, some of them taking photos, but he doesn’t care about any of it. He’s still shaking, breath coming in shallow gasps, blood pumping in his ears. He knows distantly that he should try to calm down, that KJ is probably in the building beside him, that he needs to get a grip and deal with what comes next. But he can’t.

Someone touches his arm and he lurches back, whips around, but it’s only Starlight. She’s looking a little worse for wear, lip bloody and a bruise high on her cheekbone. She stares into his face.

‘You need to calm down.’ She tells him.

He doesn’t say anything, can’t, just looks back at her.

She blinks. ‘Right.’ She says uncertainly. She takes his hands, and Liam stares down in horror as the flames singe her, but she doesn’t flinch. ‘You need to take a deep breath in, with me, come on.’ She demonstrates, and he feels his own lungs fill more deeply.

It’s a bit embarrassing really. She takes him through one of his own breathing exercises, has to do it twice before it really does the job, and the flames start to go out. There are people filming on their phones a short way away, and Liam knows this will be viral online in about ten minutes.

‘You with me?’ Starlight asks him patiently.

‘Yeah,’ he replies shakily. ‘I’m alright.’

She looks skeptical about that. ‘Are you sure? You don’t look great.’

He frowns. ‘I’m okay.’ He looks at her. ‘Are you alright? What happened to your face?’

She touches it self-consciously. ‘Stormfront.’ She replies.

‘She dead?’ Liam asks, because Starlight’s not dead, so it seems most likely.

Starlight smiles ruefully. ‘Not dead, but she’s pretty banged up, and in CIA custody.’ She starts walking towards the hospital entrance, drawing Liam with her. ‘You were right, by the way. Maeve told me what you were thinking with my powers and Stormfront’s. She got me good a few times, but I got her better.’

Liam can’t help but feel a little, bizarrely proud at that, not that Starlight is anything to do with him really.

‘I hope the CIA have somewhere they can keep her.’

She nods. ‘Mallory says they’ve taken some hints from Sage Grove.’

‘You’ve spoken to her?’ Liam’s still a bit out of it. He doesn’t really know how much time’s passed.

‘Yeah, she came straight to the Tower after you torched Homelander. She’s got people going through Stormfront’s room. They’re gonna try to figure out who the hell she actually is.’

Liam snorts. ‘What, they’re gonna read her diary?’ He feels a bit hysterical, only half his brain is on what Starlight’s telling him, the other on Kevin.

There are CIA agents flanking them now, walking them through the waiting room and down a side corridor. Liam wonders again why they’re doing this in a full hospital in front of the public’s waiting eyes. Starlight doesn’t look bothered though, she strides confidently down the hospital and into a room that has two more agents by the door. Liam follows her. It’s a large consulting room that’s currently full of people, Butcher, MM and Kimiko all on chairs, Frenchie on the exam table with a doctor looking at his very broken arm.

‘Where’s Maeve?’ Liam asks Starlight, a little swoop of panic going through him.

‘Minding Stormfront,’ Starlight replies. ‘She volunteered.’

‘If you’ll take a seat.’ The doctor says to them, looking vaguely disapproving. ‘I’ll have a look at your injuries in a moment, Ms January.’

‘I’m not really hurt.’ Starlight demures.

‘Better to make sure,’ the doctor replies, ‘concussions can be serious.’ She finishes her inspection of Frenchie’s arm. ‘I’m not concerned about nerve damage.’ She tells him. ‘We’ll put a cast on this and then X Ray to see how it’s sitting.’ Frenchie grimaces.

The doctor turns to Liam and Starlight then. ‘Where’s Kevin?’ Liam asks her.

Her face is serious but not unkind. ‘He’s in surgery, there’ll be someone out to speak to you about that shortly. I understand from your friends that you were having some kind of episode when you came in.’

Liam shoots a look at his ‘friends’. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

The doctor looks at him sternly, then nods. ‘Alright. Now, Ms January, I just want to conduct a few tests. If you’ll keep your head still and follow my finger with your eyes.’

Liam tunes out the doctor checking Starlight for concussion. He rubs his hands over his face. He’s completely exhausted, doesn’t know how he’ll ever get out of this chair, but when a man in scrubs appears at the doorway and asks for him, he’s on his feet and out the door in seconds.

‘How is he?’ Liam blurts before the surgeon can open his mouth.

The other man looks at him a little doubtfully, and Liam’s aware he probably looks unhinged.

‘He’s doing well. He was already healing by the time he got here.’ The surgeon swallows. ‘I won’t lie to you, it’s been a difficult surgery. The speed of his healing is a mixed blessing, it’s been challenging to make sure everything heals in the right way.’ Liam nods, intimately aware of this. He’d once had to rebreak all the fingers on his left hand so a terrified-looking Vought medic could splint them straight. ‘There’s also his,’ the doctor hesitates, ‘unusual anatomy. I can’t say any of us are particularly well acquainted with the structure of a gill. Luckily, I understand that a vet specializing in aquatic animals is being flown up from Florida. They’ll see him as soon as they arrive.’

‘A vet?’ Liam bristles.

The surgeon holds up his hands. ‘Those arrangements weren’t made by me. But I can assure you it’s very lucky that someone was so on the ball. We’ve made him safe, but it needs a specialist eye to make sure everything goes back where it should.’

Liam deflates, nods. ‘Right. He’s going to be alright, then?’

The doctor nods. ‘He’s got another few hours of surgery ahead of him, perhaps more, depending on what the…’ he doesn’t say vet again, ‘specialist finds when they arrive. Plastics are in with him right now, working on his hands. But I’m confident of a good result. All his scans look good, but we’ll need to wait until he wakes up to rule out a head injury completely. He’s had quite a lot superficial bruising to his face and head, but no broken bones there, at least by the time he arrived. I suspect he may have had his nose broken during the…’ he hesitates, ‘altercation, but that’s healed now. Having the incident videoed was actually very useful for us to determine the mechanism of injury. He has a fracture to his left wrist which we’ll set once surgery is finished, and he also has some tearing to the webbing on his hands.’ Liam swallows, thinks how much Kevin would hate people talking about it. ‘Plastics seem fairly certain they can fix that without specialist help, which is lucky because those were ready to close up with or without us. His most serious injuries are in his abdomen. Several of his ribs are badly broken and had punctured his lung and his liver. We’ve already operated to fix all of that, and he’s well on the way to being healed there. All I’m really worried about are is gills, because there’s a lot of unknowns. We stopped the major bleeding from the structures there, but getting them back in working order is a different matter. We have a bit of wait and see situation there. Does all that make sense?’

Liam realizes he’s been staring at the man blankly. ‘Yes, thank you.’

The surgeon nods. ‘You should be able to see him once he’s out of surgery. We’ll be waking him up immediately after surgery, but he may not be alert straight away. We anticipate he’ll be kept here for a few days at least to ensure his recovery.’

‘Can I stay?’ Liam asks immediately.

‘Visitor arrangements aren’t really my area,’ the other man replies, ‘but my understanding is that you guys have had this corridor sectioned off for your use for the foreseeable future.’

_The whole corridor_? What was Mallory playing at, setting them up in a hospital?

‘Thank you.’ Liam says again. ‘Really.’

‘Not at all.’ The doctor says, looks at him hard. ‘You really did it? Killed Homelander?’

Liam blinks. God, he’d almost forgotten. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ He frowns, looking back at the surgeon. ‘He was trying to rip Kevin’s lungs out. So yeah, I did.’

The guy shrugs, holds up his hands. ‘I’m not… I just… can’t really believe it.’

Liam snorts. ‘Yeah.’ He agrees.

‘Anyway,’ the surgeon shifts awkwardly, ‘I need to get on. I’ll be back to update you if there’s any news.’

‘Thanks.’ Liam says. He sags back against the wall as the doctor walks away.

Two hours later he’s almost asleep, sat on the floor of the corridor, when he hears the click of a camera shutter. He looks up, sees Mallory walking towards him in a cloud of agents. Maeve’s with her. And there’s a photographer lowering their camera.

‘What the fuck?’ Liam mutters, too tired to shout.

Mallory looks at the camera’s screen, nods. ‘That’ll do, I think.’ She waves the photographer away, and they scuttle back along the hall.

‘Why are you taking my picture?’ Liam asks her, staring up as the group approaches.

She smiles at him with her sharp teeth. ‘Got to maintain the narrative, Lamplighter. Exhausted hero anxiously waits for news of his wounded love. It’ll be frontpage news.’

Liam scowls.

‘You look terrible.’ Maeve tells him. ‘Really, awful.’

‘Great.’ He mutters, pushing up to his feet. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Stormfront’s secure.’ Maeve says. ‘And we found this in her room.’ She holds out a folder she’s been carrying.

Liam takes it from her, frowns, opens it to see what appears to be a complete history of Stormfront’s life, from the thirties onwards. ‘She kept a file on herself?’

Maeve shrugs. ‘Happy memories?’

‘She’s a Nazi.’ Liam says, to himself really, stunned. ‘A real Nazi.’ Makes sense, he supposes, as much as anything does. ‘Jesus.’

Their voices summon Starlight and Butcher and the rest from inside the consulting room. Liam lets the file be taken from his hands. There’s a general hubbub, but then Liam hears the surgeon’s voice again, from the other end of the corridor.

‘Kevin’s out of theater,’ he tells Liam once he has his attention. ‘He’s all settled in his room now. We woke him up in recovery, and he was able to answer some basic questions for us, but he’s sleeping now. I can take you to see him, if you like.’

‘Yes, please.’ Liam says into the sudden silence.

‘Just this way.’ The surgeon gestures. ‘We’re happy with the outcome of the surgery, Kevin’s doing really well. I will warn you through, he’s still very battered, it may be a bit of a shock.’

Liam nods tightly. He steps into the room, sees Kevin in the bed, propped up and pale against white sheets and white pillows. There are still machines and wires clustered around him, and he looks bizarrely small, even in the narrow bed.

Liam hears a choking sob next to him. Looks over in surprise to see Maeve.

‘Oh my god.’ She says. ‘His _face_.’ She puts her hand over her mouth, shocked at her own reaction. ‘I’m sorry. Just…’

She’s right, Kevin’s black and blue. Almost unrecognizable for the moment, until the swelling goes down.

‘He’s alright.’ Liam assures her. Himself. ‘He’s fine.’


End file.
